


Convergence

by karakael



Series: The Illusion of Separation [3]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1216909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karakael/pseuds/karakael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the chaos of the Avatar's battles spill over into the human world, Lieu is forced to come to terms with his companion's less...human influences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> General apology both for the length of time this took to write, and the generic high fantasy elements. Hope you enjoy anyways!

The nightmares started a month out of Harlok’s Point.

They were deep into Earth-Kingdom territory by then. Forest had given way to grassland and farms. It was…picturesque, but far different than the home Liu remembered from his childhood. Gone were the little farms with a single man toiling behind a plough; Future Industries and the similar corporations had seen too it that mechanized tillers and other automation had banished that life to only the poorest and most destitute farmers.

It meant larger fields, fewer animals, and the constant smell of diesel as they traveled through the harvest fields. Children no longer trailed after their parents, flinging stones from before the plow, and peasants didn’t glean the fields looking for scraps left behind by the workers. It was a far cry from the world Liu remembered, where the landlord’s cotton gin was the strangest creature the whole town had seen, and claimed four lives and a dozen more hands before the village learned how to use it.

But it meant work, and less sleeping on the ground. Whenever Liu and Noa reached a new town, Liu let it be known that he was a handy mechanic and a bit of a blacksmith. Within a few hours farmers and shop-keepers would seek him out, asking after his skills. Repairing the machines they brought to him took him right back to the best parts of his days in the city; the smell of melting metal, surrounded by other men, laughing and chatting, a hammer in his hands and goggles over his eyes.

And the farmers appreciated him. That was perhaps the most marked change since his childhood. They wanted a mechanic and paid him well for his services. That meant fresh eggs and milk, warm bread just out of a farm-wife’s oven and news of the city discussed over children’s heads. It meant money for rooms and a table set aside at the pub. It meant soft beds and hot showers, something he hadn’t had much opportunity for under the Equalists. 

But there was an unspoken hint from the townsfolk. Somehow, without quite understanding the signal, they all knew that Liu and Noa were wanderers. After a few days of hard labor, the work dried up, as did the hospitality. Travelers were interesting for a while, but after three days there were whispers of the ill unmarried men could do to town daughters and of what a couple of soldiers could have done to be discharged and poor. Without tinkering work it was understood that the two men would turn to darker pursuits to feed themselves. It always seemed easier to move on rather than attempt to fight those rumors.

So Liu got used to comfort for a few days interspersed with days spent sleeping beneath the stars on their way to the next village. He knew now that neither of he nor the former Amon had any destination in mind, though the winter snows might change that. Still, they worked their way further inland, farther away from Republic City, and he felt his mind ease.

That changed when, four weeks away from Harlock’s point, on the night of the winter solstice, Noa awoke screaming.

Until then, they hadn’t spoken about the nightmares. Noa simply worked until he was exhausted, then fell into a death-like sleep. He only slept a few hours out of the night, spending the rest on watch or silently staring at the ceiling. And when he slept he whimpered, but quietly, turned into the pillow so Liu had not even heard it for the first few weeks they had spent together.

Liu had never seen Amon asleep before, so he assumed, correctly, that this was the way their leader had always slept. He didn’t wake him and ignored the damp tears on the man’s pillow as best he could.

Until Noa woke up screaming, and Liu stared back into completely blank eyes.

“…Noa?” He shook him slightly as the other man’s breathing quieted.

Slowly, his irises returned and focused. Then he shuddered and pulled away.

“Sorry. I won’t wake you again. I promise.”

Liu tightened his grip. “What the hell was that?”

“A nightmare.” Noa answered, eyes flickering to the ground to avoid staring back at Liu’s unbelieving face.

“The hell it was. You’ve had nightmares all this time – we all have - but you’ve never woken up screaming.”

Silence. 

“It’s gotten worse. I know it has. The only reason I haven’t noticed was that we’ve been getting separate rooms. How long has this been going on?”

More silence, this time guilty. Noa’s hands twisted against one another until Liu lowered his hands enough to grip them.

“You do understand that your screaming could get us killed, right?”

Finally he responded. “I highly doubt that…”

“You sound like a damn fox-bear. They shoot those for going after chickens. You’ve met these people; they shoot just about anything that they don’t like, especially when it’s late at night and they’re frightened. Now what is going on? Why’s it so much worse now?”

Noa licked his lips. “It’s the Avatar. She’s gone and done something stupid. And now the spirit world is unbalanced.”

Liu nearly slapped him. Of all the idiotic excuses…but the man apparently believed his own words, which meant that not only was he a monster, but he also was apparently insane. 

He sunk back on his haunches, finally releasing Noa’s hands.

“And does that explain the eye thing?”

Noa blinked. “What ‘eye thing’?”

“Your eyes. They were white.” Then, more quietly, as if he didn’t want to admit it: “You looked like the pictures of the Avatar.”

Noa swore under his breath and turned away. “Then it’s worse than I thought.” He glanced at Liu’s frustrated expression. “…but I promise it doesn’t concern us. As you said, only evil can come from my abilities. Attempting to fix any of this would only unbalance the world further.”

Liu stared at him for a moment longer, eyes narrowed.

“So let me understand this. The Avatar has done something in the Spirit World, and as a result you are having nightmares that cause your eyes to roll into your head. Are you going to start foaming at the mouth any time soon?”

The former Equalist shook his head. Liu didn’t believe him, but what did that matter? 

“And will this interfere with our work during the day?”

Another shake, this one more emphatic. 

“Fine. Then I’ll take your word for it. But I don’t want to hear anything else about the Spirit World or your dreams. We heard enough of those lies in the City.”

Amon nodded and turned back to his bed roll. Whatever Liu thought, he would at least try to give the man a good night’s sleep. Spirits knew Noa wasn’t going to get one.

\---------------------------------------------- 

_The beast towered over him, saliva dripping from its mouth, a million eyes matching its million arms, all fixed upon him. Around them the forest stretched for leagues, untouched but corrupted by bogs and mires, the insects of a thousand years coming to reside within it. The air hummed with heat and the sound of wings._

_The centi-beast tightened its clutch on him, but this time he wouldn’t cry out. This was a dream. Not just a dream, but a dream none the less. And that knowledge was power enough to allow him to speak._

“Spirit. What do you want of me?”

“I want nothing boy, than what is rightfully mine. It has been a long time since a Ratava has wandered into my lair…”

_Its insect mouth snapped shut and it twisted its limbs tighter. There was laughter bubbling in the beast, and each chuckle sent a squeeze throughout its form. The stench of it filled the world, the smell of rotting trees and decaying bog. Its land was long gone, tilled under and drained for more farmland, but somehow the monster had found a refuge here, and brought the whole of its domain to the only one who might remember it._

_But he wouldn’t scream out. He knew what this was, and knew what his fate would be._

_A corruption spirit. How fitting. And so far away from the allies he had soothed in the city. It would feast on his soul, and leave nothing but a husk behind…_

“Noa. It’s time to get up.”

He snapped awake, moving from paralysis to awareness in less than a second. His brow was wet with sweat and the leaves beneath his bedroll had blackened. But Liu didn’t notice, and he intended to keep it that way.


	2. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So what _was_ Amon up to during all those years after he fled from the North? And why would that past be haunting him now?

They worked their way deeper into the Earth Kingdom, sticking to the farming plains. The harvests had all been gathered in, resulting in plenty of work for Liu. Every town had bent axles and snapped belts. He had the former Amon running for supplies and extra tools almost every time he set up his small forge.

The small towns still felt safe, so it was perhaps subconsciously that they began avoiding larger settlements whenever they could. Also, larger villages had blacksmiths of their own, or regular traders that were preferred over two nameless wanderers. But more likely it had something to do with their faces staring out of the second page of the newspapers.

The first page, of course, dealt with the escalating tensions between the North and Southern Water tribes. Liu, having never paid particular attention to politics outside of Republic City unless he absolutely had to, paid it little mind, focusing instead on the vague policies of the new President and then urging Noa to leave quickly when he saw their pictures still circulating. Yes, they were declared dead, but that meant little when the fear-mongers seemed to be jumping at ghosts.

Noa paid more attention to the first page, sipping his bitter tea and glancing at the frightened faces around them. With little habitable land to spare on the poles, Water Tribe peoples had spread across the world, making the tensions more global than his former Lieutenant realized. If the two Tribes went to war, it could easily embroil the rest of the world…especially if the Avatar did something foolish like look for aid from some of the South’s trading partners.

_What is this? A monster at the door? Oh no, no, no!_

The voice had a hissing quality, not unlike a simmering kettle. Noa’s eyes flickered to the fireplace where a hearth-spirit watched him.

The world condensed, darkening at the edges. The human customers faded, and eyes appeared in the woodwork. Wind whistled through a spectral door, and Noatak felt as a storm brewed far away.

The hearth-spirit bristled. It was tiny, a being brought to life to embody the inn and the peoples who frequented it. Yet it still bristled, swelling as best it could and reaching out tiny arms to touch the villagers around it.

_Mine! Not yours!_

_I’m just passing through._ He promised, but the hearth spirit took no notice. 

_Leave! Liar! Betrayer! Monster!_

He looked away, trying to ignore the angry yells of the fierce little spirit. Beyond the inn door a vortex raged, lightning flickering in the sky, and the smell of brine on the wind. No wonder the hearth-spirit was terrified. There were spirits going to war out there. And even as the human tribes took up arms, so too would the spectral ones that served them…

“Noatak?” 

Noa blinked, and the world returned to normal. The fire-place flickered, the inn bustled, and all about them life went on as normal.

Liu looked concerned. “Have you been listening to me? We can’t stay here. Too close to Republic City, and too many people might recognize our faces.”

“I agree.” He whispered back, watching the approach of a bartender laden with drinks.

_If I’m right…_

With a shout, the burly man tripped over something that was not there, and sent the drinks tumbling into Liu and Noa’s lap.

No one else could hear it, but the fire still shouted _MINE_ as they hurried away.

\--------------------------------------------- 

The next few weeks they spent traveling, following maps they had bartered for in the town. Their wandering journey had taken them across much of the flat plains surrounding Republic City. Now their only choice was to turn back, chancing an encounter with city guards and deep snows, or cross the wide waters before them and continue on into the southlands.

They had discussed turning north, avoiding the great port towns entirely, but the northern people were shepherds and small-time farmers, not the laborers Liu was used to serving. It was doubtful that they could find income until the spring lambing and the return of the summer crops. But the southern peoples had a shorter winter and at the very least they could find odd jobs in the port towns.

Left unsaid was the agreement that neither wished to return to a city. Yes, one could hide better in cities, but the noise and politics left a sour taste in Liu’s mouth, and he wanted to keep Noa away from any temptations the cities held.

So they made their way from town to town, following the rivers when no other options were available. The roads were better the further south they traveled, and the increase in forests meant better shelter from the fall rains.

But the nightmares still came.

\-------------------------- 

Another thunderstorm pounded on the roof of their lean-to. After a few months on the road Liu was finally getting used to sleeping out of doors. He could help with making camp and light the fire after only a few tries. Of course, being on public lands meant that they really shouldn’t be doing this…but villages that were easily a car ride away took far longer to reach with their slow-moving bison. Two days of camping, a week of repairs, and then another three days of camping was the norm. But Liu didn’t know what they would do when winter proper hit. As of yet, not a single town had enough work to last a full week, much less several months. 

Already the nights were turning frigid and even as Noatak began to smile at the frost in the air Liu shivered unhappily under a half a dozen blankets.

He blew on his tea, back flush against the side of the enclosure made up of their cart. Their fire sputtered unhappily in the damp but bravely did its best to warm his toes and drenched socks.

“The sky seems to hate us today.” He grumbled. They’d barely made it a league before the path had turned to mud and they were forced to turn off.

“It’s not we who have angered the Sky-Spirits.” Returned Amon. 

Silence. A month it had been since the first time Liu had seen the whites of his companion’s eyes, and they still hadn’t spoken of it.

Now seemed as good a time as any.

“Do you really believe that shit?”

Noa stared upward. At the periphery of his vision rippling green lines thrashed and tangled in the clouds, thunder roaring each time one touched another. There were faces in the lighting and voices in the wind.

“I don’t have to believe. I can see it. The Avatar has done something foolish, and the spirits are angry.”

“Bull shit.” Liu said. “Weather doesn’t have emotion.” 

“But the spirits connected to it do. Their actions in the spirit world affect our weather, and the goings on of this world affect them.”

Liu looked up, squinting as if he could see the insanity his friend believed in.

“And you’ve always been able to see these storm-spirits?”

“No. Sense them a bit, yes. But it normally takes years of meditation or phenomenal luck to even hope to cross into the spirit world. And I’ve never seen them directly interact with the real world in such a way…”

“Was this one of the things your father taught you?” A low blow, Liu knew, but the words left his mouth before he could stop them.

Amon looked at him oddly. “…no. Like Healing, my father believed spirituality was a pointless pursuit. But unlike Healing, I had a talent for it. When I ran away it was one of the first things I tried to learn.”

“You actually went looking for teachers?”

Amon settled back beside Liu, staring into the fire. “Of course. I looked for teachers for all of it. I thought…I thought that if I learned enough, the memory of blood bending would leave me. But it never did.”

Liu shifted to refill their tea cups.

“Tell me about it.”

\----------------------------------------------------- 

The boy Noatak barely survived the storm. He fled through it, using every fragment of knowledge his father and mother had given him to survive; hiding in ice caves, digging for kivak left behind by polar-bear-dogs, creating snow shelters and igloos with water-bending. He didn’t think enough to loath the skills he was using, didn’t remember the father who had beaten them into him or the mother who had coaxed him to survive. He simply existed, day after day, until the storm spent itself and he found himself on a melting ice flow. After that it seemed simple enough to just let the ice take him where it would.

The anger came back as he floated through the lonely ocean, but it was hard to remain angry with nothing but sky and sea as companions. A diet of purified water and raw fish would seem horrid to a person from any other nation, but to Noatak it was filling and bland – just what he wanted after the terror of the storm and the betrayal of his father and brother.

Tarrlok he forgave easily enough, stranded halfway between the stars and waters. But he found within him a deep anger not just at his father, but at the mother that had allowed his father’s actions to continue. As he floated, that odd, unjustified anger became a fascination. Over and over he remembered his mother’s face, kind and worn, the quiet courage that allowed her to get through every day, the kindness she used when drying his tears, and the creativity that bound them together as she helped him hide his talent from his father.

 _She did the best she could._ He whispered to himself. _What more could I expect?_

They both had known what Yakone was capable of, even as they had done their best to shelter Tarrlok from the man. Yes, his father had once been a kind man, in between his rare rages that only became more and more common as Tarrlok began manifesting a talent that a child couldn’t hide and then accidentally revealed Noatak’s ability as well.

\-------------------------------- 

“Wait…you hid your ability?”

Noatak looked up from the fire. “Of course. My mother was the village healer. Yakon was largely uninterested in me as a child, so she was the one who noticed when I manifested. We both were weak water-bender’s as children, but I hid my ability and learned to control it from my mother.”

“But…you couldn’t have known what Yakon would do…” 

“Before my brother was conceived, he once beat my mother unconscious for not giving him a water-bender son. We knew.”

Liu lapsed into silence. His father had devolved into drunken rages occasionally. But his mother had always hit back, and the older kids knew when to get the younger ones out of the way. He’d never considered what it must have been like being the elder child, and having no one to teach you when to run.

“Anyway, it wasn’t uncommon then for female water-benders to hide their abilities until they were scouted for Healing. Since that was always what I wanted to do, it seemed natural to follow in mother’s footsteps. Of course Yakone put a stop to that once he realized what we had done.”

“But you kept all that from Tarrlok?”

Noa looked away. “What were we supposed to do? My father had started going mad, yet I loved my family. Tarrlok idolized him. And if we showed him the man my father could be…it still wouldn’t have changed anything. We were a tiny village, completely isolated, and my mother’s position meant that we could not leave. And, like all people who see their loved ones lose themselves, we believed that if we did everything right, he would return to the man he once was.”

His face hardened and he shut his eyes. Pain etched his features.

“I know better now. I was a fool of a child. It was my responsibility to take care of my family, but instead I fled, leaving Tarrlok in that man’s clutches. Without us, mother could have escaped back to her family. But instead…”

He shook himself. “I wanted to forgive her. All that blazing anger I felt against my father was justified. But I couldn’t let myself forgive her, no matter how much time I spent on that ocean. And I couldn’t forgive what water-bending had done to my family. So when I washed up on the fire-nation shores, I went searching for work at a monastery.”

“You decided to learn _fire-bending_?!”

\----------------------------------------------- 

The rag-boy Noa spent three months scrubbing floors before the masters realized he was there to learn. There were still tensions between the Water and Fire tribes, but Noa was hardly the first Water-Tribe member who had expressed desire to learn from Fire-Bending scholars. As the monastery was non-martial in nature, given more to contemplation and spiritual pursuits, they allowed Noa to learn, especially when he explained in vague but vehement words his hatred for water-bending. 

Fire Lord Zuko had decreed that Fire-Benders needed to turn their hearts away from hate. He had explained to his people the struggles he had undergone to set aside his anger and focus on the heart-beat and life that flowed through fire, rather than the death and destruction normally associated with it.

So the young water-tribe boy rife with anger but wishing to push it aside was accepted with grace among the monks.

\----------------------------------- 

“And I was good at it. So good that the temple Master took me aside to express his belief that I might have spiritual guidance for my training. He had seen other novices with good intentions win the “admiration of the Spirit of the Gei” and pushed me to participate in meditation and prayer.”

“I saw it the first time during my third month of training. Before then I had been getting flickers of the spirit world as I meditated, fantastic scenery and strange creatures. But I never expected to see it during breakfast of all things. "

“One moment I was alone at my table, waiting between the servants' breakfast and the novices’, and the next I was speaking to an old, goat-faced man who chided me for being so slow in my studies.”

\--------------------------------------- 

“Well, you’re the slowest Ratava I’ve ever seen.” The goat said.

 _The oddest thing is that it doesn’t seem odd._ Noa thought. He was carrying a dozen empty bowls but the appearance of the goat, which was dressed in a gei and was working its way through the morning meal, seemed completely normal. Almost as if he’d seen it a dozen times before and never realized it.

“I’m sorry Master, but the dining area…”

“Oh, you can see me?” The goat looked surprised. “Maybe not slow in _everything_. Ask Master Chun to send you onto the Earth Nation next. Might as well get a look at your destiny.” 

And that was it. He attributed the vision to spending too much of the morning on kata and let the matter go. But after the encounter his meditating was easier and his forms more precise. He still struggled with anger, but over time he felt what the Fire Lord had spoke of; how one could take anger and push it out into the flame, leaving peace behind. The anger still boiled, and he wasted no time attempting to forgiving his father, but the practice and form quieted the rest of his soul. 

But though he was quick to understand the various Fire Nation spiritual philosophies he made little progress on reaching the Spirit World.

Five months went by before he started seeing flashes of the goat-man again. Each time the creature appeared it made vague shooing motions and shook its horns at him.

Finally he went to the infirmary, worried that he had gotten heatstroke. 

The lightning-healer listened to his story and laughed. “You are one of the students in advanced training, correct?” 

He nodded.

She laughed some more, then turned him to face the shrine that every room held.

“Is that the creature you are seeing?”

Carved in the woodwork, below the swirling body of the Dragon that gave the monastery its name, and across from the hare that was the particular spiritual patron of the current Master, was a smiling goat-man. 

Noa sat down abruptly.

“…I must have heat stroke.”

“What did he tell you to do?” The voice from the door was Master Chun, her garments swirling around her as she floated across the room. 

“To go to the Earth Nation.”

The Master looked surprised. “But your studies…”

Noa flushed. “I’m afraid I’ve been stagnating lately, Master. They say I have mastered the Philosophy, but no amount of training can give me fire. This might be as far as I can go.”

The woman crossed her arms and thought. Slowly her eyes moved to the shrine. Then to a corner of the room behind Noa.

Turning, he saw an odd flicker of light, as if there had been a momentary mirage. Master Chun appeared to be listening to it.

“Very well. You have been a good apprentice, and made much progress in little time. The others and I had thought you might remain here until you reached the end of your spiritual path, but that is apparently not the case.”

“But Master – “

“Silence. If the Spirit of this School says you are to leave, then you will leave.”

At his heart-broken expression her face softened. 

“Do not take this as a failure, Noa. Many other novices take journeys when they have found themselves upon a plateau.”

“But other novices can return.”

“You may as well. There is no telling where your journey will lead.”

But neither of them quite believed her words. 

\--------------------------------------- 

“And so I set off for the Earth Kingdoms, with instructions to continue to practice fire-bending as best I could, and to follow wherever my spiritual path lead.”

“Sounds a bit trite if you ask me.” 

Liu unpacked his bed-roll and laid it next to the fire. The rain was petering out, but it was still damp and miserable beyond the reach of their fire.

Noa chuckled. It was his first laugh in quite a while. “I thought that was a good ending for the evening.”

“I really don’t care about the beginning of this ‘spiritual journey’. I care about the end. The bit that convinced you that you could lie to a whole city about the Spirits believing in our cause.”

Until he said it, Liu hadn’t realized that that was what had really made him angry. But it was true; the weird things that had surrounded Amon since leaving the city were secondary. The man had once claimed the blessing of the spirits – nothing since the war had proved it. Yet he believed in their existence... but had seemed content to lie about them to the city. And now he said he was seeing them again.

“That…is more complicated.”

Liu settled into the bedroll. “I would think so. But you still haven’t convinced me that you’re not completely crazy.”

Noa was silent for a moment, masking his consideration behind setting out his own bedroll and putting away the rest of their evening supplies. 

“Maybe I am. But if so, it is an insanity that is reflected in the headlines of every paper.”

Liu leaned back, wishing to see something other than the tarp over their heads. Maybe if he stared long enough, he could make the world make sense again. Maybe tomorrow he would wake up back in their base, the night before the final rally, and everything would return to normal. And maybe someday he would learn to fire-bend and scorch the smug face off the world's leaders. It was all just as likely.

“The Avatar is real and Bending is real." He said gruffly. "So Spirits must be real too. But that hardly means that you can see them.”

“When I was Amon, you believed.” Noa said quietly.

“You aren’t Amon anymore.” Liu snapped. “And it was an easy lie that people wanted to believe.” 

“You too?”

Liu turned to look at him. “Yes, I suppose so. I wanted to believe that something would protect us when we defied the world. Even if the Avatar stood against us. But now…it’s not simple anymore. _You_ aren’t simple.” 

“I wish I could be.” 

For a moment, Liu wanted to reach out and brush the sad, strange expression off Noatak’s face. But just like everything else about the man, it felt too real. After ten years of the blank mask, and four months running after a ghost, the strange, aching complexity of the man behind the mask was too much. Liu turned away.

“Simple is a lie. I’d rather a mad truth.” 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------- 

_The wind whipped and the air-serpent howled in fierce joy. Thunder and flight and rain and wind and wind and wind…it sang in the joy of its play._

_But far below, a_ wrong _presence nibbled at it. Not as_ wrong _as the battles raging elsewhere, but something that still should not be._

_“What are you, little blight?” It called, turning its eyes to the tiny creature._

_When the creature didn’t answer, it spoke louder, a roar that would terrify any friend of the Anti-Avatar. Let it know that the winds would not bow down before any darkness!_

_“Ratava.” Noa quavered, wrenched from a dead sleep into this raging maelstrom of wind and water._

_“Oh._ That _one.” The serpent considered. “You have outlasted your time, little Ratava. Others have come to take your place. And there are spirits you have failed that want your blood. Should I give you to them?”_

_As an ally of Raava it considered this fair. Anything that opposed the Avatar might upset the Balance. But then again, the Avatar was embroiled in much bigger battles…_

_Then again, it could just consume the Ratava now and be done with it. Waste-not. Want-not…_  
  
\------------------------------------------------------------- 

And then it was gone.

Noa started awake, drenched in a cold sweat and chilled to the bone.

Next to him, Liu was curled on his side, one hand outstretched, barely touching his finger-tips.


	3. Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Amon and Liu wander through the United Republic, the spirits become more insistent. But is it possible for two wanderers to handle creatures the Avatar cannot?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gods I hope I'm not making Amon into too much of a Gary Sue. The reason behind his abilities will be explained fully in the next chapter. In the mean time, on to exposition!

Liu shook Noa awake the next morning. The younger man groaned and turned to his side, wincing at the early morning light. Surprised, Liu pulled his had away to find it damp; with sweat or dew he couldn’t tell. But for the first time he was up before Noa, and he took some time to revel in it.

Tea and rice was an easy breakfast, one even he could brew over the embers of the night’s fire. Above them the sky was clear and empty; there was not a rumble of a plane or threaten of a cloud to be seen. The goat-bison grumbled to itself and the fall birds sang loudly in the trees, despite the growing chill.

It was…nice. And it gave Liu time to think. The winter was nipping at their heels. The small villages were good enough for summer work, but soon that would dry up. They were still three weeks out from Republic City; too close for comfort, especially if they planned to settle down anywhere for a the worst of winter.

What they needed was a mid-sized village, large enough for Liu to find work and cheap housing, large enough to hide themselves in the crowds, but small enough to need new immigrants and laborers, and beneath the notice of the wider world.

He realized he was avoiding thinking about anything Noa had said last night. It had been a good story, but it left many of his questions unanswered, even while giving answers to ones he would have never dared asked. And it seemed so…impossible. The Amon he had known had undeniable charisma and a believable connection to the spirit world that had sprang inexplicably into his story right when they needed something bigger than themselves to turn to. 

Noa’s story was less neat. The boy he had been seemed confused and conflicted, angry at all the wrong people and without purpose. While he had spoken, Liu had empathized, but seen none of the man who had been so willing to lead a revolution. Noatak had been too young and self-obsessed. And no matter what the Avatar said, Amon had cared about far more than himself. Perhaps in the end he had lost it, but the man in the journal Liu held so dear, and the man who had been at the front lines for ten years fighting against Triads and politicians alike was not someone bent on revenge or obsessed only with his personal goals.

Strange, how the idea of a child Amon seemed so wrong. Before the journal, Liu couldn’t imagine his leader having stumbled, much less needing help from teachers and fishermen. But the Amon in the book was a self-contained man always on the lookout for personal failings but never willing to voice his doubts or fears. Amon would have never asked for help or begged for food. The child Noatak had done all of this.

And it was unsettling. The boy in the story was so different from the man he knew, both before the revolution and after it. He still was struggling to get Noa to eat or express desires, which was the complete opposite of the boy in the story. And while he was starting to realize he had forgiven Noa for almost everything he had done as Amon…he would never have considered doing the same for a boy who thought that the first step in his path to redemption lay in learning the most violent of bending arts.

\------------------------------------------------------- 

Noa sighed and finally sat up, nudging Liu from his contemplation. Liu was shocked at the change; the bags were gone from his eyes and the lines of stress and fatigue had eased. He hadn’t realized just how much Noa had needed a good sleep.

“There’s food and tea.” He said gruffly, refusing to think more on the easing knot of worry in his gut. “We need to get moving if we’re to reach the next town before night fall.”

Noa nodded sheepishly. “Sorry for sleeping so long. I should have – “

“I don’t care. About time you got some decent sleep.”

“Liu…”

He was silent as Noa hurried through his meal and helped finish loading the cart. Noa kept sending him confused looks, especially when they turned out on the road and Liu made it clear in no uncertain terms that they would go faster if he joined him on the cart.

“With luck, we’ll make enough at the next town to buy another goat-bison. No point in having you walk when you can ride.”

“If you say so…”

Yet still Noa hesitated before joining him, and sat on the other end of the seat, attempting to avoid his personal space as much as possible.

Silence descended, the same silence that lasted for most of their journey together. It was easy to forget who Noa was when he was just a silent, shuffling figure. Most of the time, Liu preferred it that way. But today he had spent enough time in his own head, wondering at his companion’s motivations and history.

Finally, around mid-afternoon, he spoke up.

“So, you learned Fire-Bending. Can you actually do it?”

Surprised, Noa came out of his silence. “I can do the forms, yes. And, if asked, I could probably teach a fire-bender up to the level of Mastery.”

Liu let the reins rest in his lap. “You were that good?” He felt the anger flicker in his voice. Amon claimed that fire-bending was what killed his family, but this…

“I…had help learning it. But how did you think I could teach how to defeat Fire-Benders without knowing something of it myself?”

Liu considered. It was true. There had been other chi-blockers in the city that the Equalists had sounded, but they were mostly working as healers and religious mentors. None of them had known the combat Blocking taught in the Fire Nation, so Amon had seemed sent by the spirits when he revealed he knew how to fight with Chi-Blocking. Liu had assumed his mastery had come from spiritual help, but he had never considered that Amon knew something of the styles themselves.

But they had been able to take down even Fire-Nation Lightning benders with Amon’s chi-blocking. Not to mention Metal Benders and Air and Water Benders. Without spiritual guidance (or at least spiritual guidance meaning something very different than Amon had implied) he would have had to learn at least something of the different, modern forms of bending.

“What does that even mean, a water-bender learning fire-bending?”

Noa shrugged.

“Just like the Air acolytes at the Temple are not Air-Benders, anyone can learn the basic forms and philosophy of a bending style. One might not be able to actually produce Fire or Air, but one can use water like flame, using similar attacks or defenses.”

“Show me.”

Noa froze, the shock palpable on his face. “But…”

“I’ve never seen you do anything with your bending that wasn’t monstrous. But surely you can control yourself enough to give me a demonstration?” 

Noa looked away. “It has been a long, long time since I’ve practiced…”

“Then I’ll get a laugh out of you falling on your face.”

\------------------------------------------  
Liu clicked at the bison and nudged it off the road onto a grassy plain. Now that they were out of the forest again they had begun seeing people and farms, but it had been a mile since the last sighting and there were no rumble of cars in the distance. And it was a good time for lunch, if nothing else.

Noa sighed and swung down to tie off the bison and get their cook-stove started. But for him, lunch was done far too quickly, and did little to ease the fear in his stomach.

“Well?” Liu prompted.

“…fine.”

He tugged his shirt over his head and left it on the seat. The last thing he needed was to get tangled in the cloth and make a fool of himself.

Though maybe that would be preferable to Liu seeing him for what he really was; a bender, and a good one. After all the horrific things non-benders had endured because of people like him, there would be no way for Liu to ever forgive him once he accepted his abilities.

But there was power in fighting against inevitability. He breathed in, inhaling the pain and anguish into the very core of his being. That would be his power.

Legs apart, he raised two fists above his head, and let the power flow.

\------------------------------------------- 

There was pain on Amon’s face as he came up into the starting stance. He breathed in a shallow breath, eyes tightly closed and his lips thin. Liu wondered if he had been wrong to ask for this.

And then…he began the form.

It was beautiful.

Those were words Liu never anticipated using for fire-bending, of all things, but there was beauty and life in the motions of his former master. From somewhere within the former Amon pulled strength and perseverance, pushing those thoughts into the snapping motions and intricate footwork. 

He didn’t use water bending or fire-bending, just the movements by themselves, and yet there was beauty in that too. Each punch and kick was clearly capable of delivering a blow, yet so too was each move perfectly controlled, executed with finesse and grace, placed where the master intended it and nowhere else.

As Noa moved through the form, whirling and striking in the elegant fight that was so typical of fire-benders, his breathing slowed and his face calmed. With each strike something came undone; the power bled from him, not into a fire-ball or water-whip, but instead into the ether, evaporating and taking tension with it.

By the end he was sweating, but his body relaxed and his breathing eased into the deep, measured breaths of meditation. And even as Liu recognized mastery when he saw it, he also saw how the ease of tension made each move more perfect, more precise, and more like a dance.

After one final move that was a kick and a block rolled into one that returned Amon back to the very point he started, he returned to his starting stance. Frozen at the beginning once again, he inhaled one last time, and Liu saw a faint smile flicker at the corner of his lips. 

\--------------------   
Noa breathed deep, feeling the rush of endorphins and the feeling of peace that they brought with them. It had been years since he had last performed the pinans. Even the most basic of forms could still remind him of the spirit of Fire-Bending, and the time he had spent learning them.

The motions began roughly, as he felt his way through the form, remembering the moves through muscle-memory rather than any cognitive effort. There were parts that he had struggled with as a student that returned to torment him; a turn with odd footwork, a motion that jarred a bruised shoulder, a punch that was just an inch off center and would have had his teacher chiding him for weeks. But the critical eye faded in the sea of motion. Breath in, Breath out. Pause. Strike. Listen to the heart beat, feel the anger, let it go.

He was done be for he realized it, returning to his first stance, muscles singing and blood pounding in his ears. Were he to allow himself to go on, he would have made his way through the rest of the series, reveling in the peace they invoked. 

He inhaled, holding that meditative calm for just one moment longer, then exhaled it out, feeling the weight of reality settle back onto his shoulders. 

Then he opened his eyes.

\------------------------------ 

Liu’s face was carefully blank. When Noa was done he turned away, unwilling to put voice to his thoughts and emotions, and instead finished guiding the goat-bison back to the road.

Noa hurried to catch up, snagging his shirt and choosing not to clamber back up on the cart-seat. Liu’s expression forbade him to even ask. It would be too close, and he wanted some distance between the two of them to think of what he had seen. 

When they had still been in the Equalists, they had protested Pro-Bending almost weekly. After all, it was one of the most obvious examples of the preference of Benders over all others; a sport solely devoted to glorifying a monstrous tradition. Yet they had also protested other Bending events throughout the city, some at the arena, others held in various dojos or parks.

One which came to mind was a Fire Bending demonstration they had protested over eight years ago. The Republic City bending schools were some of the best in the world, gathering athletes from all over, hopefuls who wished to compete in Pro-Bending as well as several elite academies that trained future nobles in bending alongside their other classes. It was the later that had provided the most recent crop of fire-bending boys; colony kids and Fire Nation nationals alike; most had been trained their whole lives in the various styles. 

The Equalists had yet to be driven off the premises when the first few boys took the stage to demonstrate their mastery. To Liu’s critical eye they would have been no match for himself or Amon. They postured like arrogant teenage boys, teasing each other and jockeying on the sidelines. Yet the crowd had cheered as they went through their forms, the littlest boys watching the older ones and coming in a moment too late on each motion.

Then the instructor had taken the stage. He was young as well; in his twenties and a visiting teacher from the Fire Nation. The audience had been stunned by his performance, at the passion and energy of his form. Yet what Liu saw, standing in the shadows, prepping for their take-over of the event, was the cold arrogance in his eyes. While the younger students had been acting like idiotic teens, they still were children. But this man took his confidence and charisma and wove it into his motions. There was cruelty in his eyes, cruelty that would lead him to torment his students and oppress any who were beneath him. And those boys would adore him for it, take that knowledge and make it into their being, and go out into the world and inflict it upon a myriad of others.

And that was what he put into his form. All that cruelty and arrogance, crystalized and shown to the world as skill. The crowd had cheered and Liu had no qualms when they had rushed the stage and stripped the man of his bending. 

Yet the man had been just one of a million fire-benders. His ‘tragedy’ had been mourned in all the papers by reporters speaking as if the loss of ones bending could possibly compare to the loss of dignity and life that non-benders faced every day. The city had lost five trade-agreements with the Fire Nation because of it, and the event caused a minor international scandal. Apparently, the man had been one of the preeminent Fire Benders in the world. His teaching had influenced hundreds, if not thousands of new fire-benders each year, and each came out of his dojo with that same arrogant belief that might made right.

_That_ was what Fire-Bending meant to Liu. Arrogance and Cruelty in the Cities, and extortion rackets and terror were ever they could get away with it. As if a random ability gave one the right to control others.

All benders were like that, but Fire Benders always seemed more obvious about it, especially those in power.

But Noa…Noa’s form hadn’t reflected the arrogance and finesse of the modern style. Where the city benders were all about constant speed and power, his form was intense, following slow careful movements with bursts of strength and passion. It wasn’t the Fire Bending of the modern era, all concerned with showmanship and efficiency. Instead, it looked more like air-bending, not in the form itself, but the way Noa had breathed and concentrated, taking inner strength and pushing it outwards. 

And in some ways, that was worse. For it was easy to hate benders whose style mimicked their arrogance. In the city bending was a job, a sport, an entertainment. No one treated it like an art, not anymore. And in its way, that was more honest than using an ancient art-form to kill and oppress. 

Which, no matter what Noa had demonstrated, no matter the shame he felt now, was what he had done. Bending had destroyed their movement, their city, and their friendship. A pretty display would not change that, no matter what the flush on Liu’s cheeks or the tightening in his chest suggested.

\------------------------------ 

_The chimera-bird flapped next to Noa, matching his pace. Around them the fields receded into open plains with odd stone growths and flocks of things one could only hope were birds chasing things that would be insects in any other land…  
_  
“Tell me, Ratava, should I terrorize you as well?” _The chimera chirped, her warbling voice belying her strange body._

“If you wish. I have been hounded by fire, water and earth spirits. An attack by one of air seems only fair.” 

_The chimera-bird chuckled._ “Then you are lucky that I am a little spirit and killing you would bring me to the eyes of dangerous enemies.” _Still, she slashed down with her talons, just barely missing his shoulder._

“Shouldn’t you be worried about more serious things?” _He didn’t dodge the next attack, knowing that his body in the human world would stumble and the bird could hit him easily if she truly wished._

“Such as the darkness flooding the world? It is not my place, little Ratava, to worry about the conflicts within the human world. We spirits will survive, no matter what Vatuu does to your world.”

_He started._ “Then it is true. Raava – “ __

_But she was gone, flicking out of his senses as easily as swallow soars. All that was left was her laughter…and a final warning._

“Be careful little one. So much worse is coming…”

\------------------------------------------

 

“So you saw one spirit once, and that gave you the right to say that the Spirits supported you?” 

Liu didn’t want to talk about the demonstration. Nor did he want to think about it anymore. The silence that had descended was almost painfully thick and snapping at Noa seemed the best way to distract himself. 

Noa looked up, the physical plain returning in a rush. “No…I saw other spirits after that.” The laughter of the little bird still echoed in his mind. “But it wasn’t until long after I mastered Earth and Air bending that I ever found one that cared one way or the other about humans.”

Liu paused. Someday, he would become used to Noa pulling such insane stories out of his life. Earth and Air bending? It was almost like…

“What were you doing, trying to become an Avatar?”

It was Noa’s turn to flinch. “I have no right to claim such lofty goals. I never intended to learn all the styles. It just seemed…appropriate.”

But there was a tightness to his voice and a darkness in his eyes; the same darkness that Liu recognized whenever Noa withheld the full truth. _‘Appropriate?’ Now why would that be?_ He wondered to himself.

Aloud he said. “Explain. Why wasn’t Fire and Water enough?”

\------------------------------------------------- 

Noa could barely bring himself to Water-Bend while at the Fire Monastery. It brought back too many memories and made him a clear outsider. And each time his teachers prompted him to demonstrate his skills to others he lost control, once badly injuring a teacher and another time snapping his own wrist. It didn’t take long before the instructors agreed with him.

When he set out for the Earth Nation, Master Chun spoke to him privately, suggesting that he start up again, as with his hard-won spiritual growth he should have been able to control himself. And it was true the meditation and rigorous physical work had calmed his sullen anger considerably, but water no longer came easily to his hands and he preferred it that way. The memory of blood-bending his brother and father were still too strong, even after two years away from the North.

Those were the fears and angers he tried to purge with the Fire-Forms, and he continued to practice them, even as he took one of the first ships traveling west to the Earth Nation. He hadn’t really thought about far off course he had drifted during his months on the sea, but he had been almost as far from civilization as possible and it was only luck that had guided him to a friendly shore. 

Afterwards, he would often curse that ‘luck’, but as a young man he had taken it as a gift and returned to the sea once again for the month long journey with no fears.

On the steamer he had stayed primarily below decks, deep in meditation. Though his skills and heritage still disgusted him there was nothing wrong with the sea itself, and through the hum of the engines he listened to the waves and call of sea-birds. Meditation was easier on the sea, and he focused on gratefulness and thanks to the sea-spirits that had protected his people for so long. 

He never made direct contact with the spirit world over the voyage, but occasionally he felt a dark, wide presence beneath him, one without judgment or thought, so far removed from everything he understood as to be incomprehensible. It was a humbling, but comforting, in its vastness. Before it his own sins, and the sins of humanity itself, seemed inconsequential.

So it was with hope that he alighted on the shores of the Earth Nation, a newly minted monk and teacher, ready to make his way in the world as best he could. If an Earth Master could show him the way to the completion of his spiritual journey, then he was prepared to learn.

\-------------------------- 

“So you went first to Ba Sing Se?” 

Liu could see the smoke of the next village on the horizon and it made him relax. The last thing he wanted was to spend another night on the cold ground. No matter how far south they traveled, winter still seemed to be nipping at their heels. It was hard to believe they were almost at the cross-quarter. 

“No. I thought that by traveling through the less populated lands first I might stumble upon a monastery as I had with the Fire School. But I was barely out of the port before I had realized the error of my ways.”

“How so?”

“Well, I was wearing Fire Nation colors in former war-lands.”

Liu was silent for a moment, then broke out laughing. “You really were an innocent kid, weren’t you?”

Noa huffed. “Innocent? No. But I had never lived in an area so populated as the Earth Nation. Even on their rockiest coasts, those most destroyed by the Fire Nation, there were villages full of thousands of people. It was…overwhelming.”

Liu had never considered that. The Amon he had known was confident in just about any situation, even ones he had little knowledge or control over. The idea of a young Noatak getting lost and confused was hard to believe. But then he remembered his first day in Republic City; how the crowds had shoved and jostled, how everything had been too expensive and too loud, and above all how the whole world seemed to be shoving itself on him.

And he had grown up with fifteen siblings. He couldn’t imagine what it might have been like for a boy from the frozen tundra.

“So…I take it they didn’t think much of Fire Nation monks?”

Noa sighed. “No. I was nearly dragged before the magistrate and only the pass from my monastery saved me from being thrown right back onto the boat I came from. I changed my look quickly after that one; cut my hair back and switched out my robes for ones in Earth-Nation colors.

“And of course, I had intended to work as a kind of minister, and that also was impossible. No one would listen to a Fire-Bender, not after what had happened to their lands barely a generation ago.”

He looked down at the ground. “I think that might have been the biggest shock. I had come from a school where so much good was done through Fire-Bending. No one was learning for the sake of killing or conquest. The monks tended to the sick, helped calm the spirits, and worked as mediators to even the highest councilors. 

“But wander the Earth Nation lands was…horrible. Everywhere I looked I saw the ravages of the Century War. And while the buildings could be fixed and the people were settling back to their lives, the subtle horrors were worse.”

“What do you mean?” Liu prompted when Noa lapsed into silence.

“Perhaps it was different in the colony lands – the ones that would be made into the United Republic. But the war had been fought continuously in the lands that I was traveling through. There were valleys and plains that had lain fallow for years and would never again be used for farmland since the Fire Nation had salted and burned the land…and the villages that had stood upon them.

“There were places I traveled that mention of the Fire Nation would still instill rage or fear, for even though the war had been over for longer than I had been alive, there were those who had fought in it, seen their friends die or their children ripped away…or worse, for when the Fire Nation soldiers took a village they took whatever they wished, including any man or woman they took a fancy to. 

“Even I could tell that the spirits of the land had been corrupted by this. And though I couldn’t easily connect to the spirit world, I could sense those that still walked. There was a wrongness in the very land itself. The people were recovering, doing their best to forget the war ever happened, but the land could not forget. It had been violated and hurt, and the spirits had forgotten what they once were.”

“And only you could save them?” His voice sounded sarcastic, and Liu bit back any further comment. But Noa was talking about lands not unlike his own. And hadn’t he seen what it had been like; the way his father could turn in a moment from loving to angry, shouting at shadows and raging at what the Fire Nation had done. And his sisters…it hadn’t mattered that the Kuzon family had been their friends since they were tiny, when one of his sisters had brought home a boy with Fire in his heritage both she and the boy had been banned from ever returning home. 

Of course, it was like that everywhere. And over time that tension had faded, and the lands found their way to peace, but it had been a long and hard reconciliation. Few of those raised in the cities of today could understand what it was like growing up even a generation after the war, when one could still be burned or encased in stone if you looked to dark or to pale in the wrong city.

Surely, in the lands where the war had raged for a full century, that kind of tension would be worse. 

“No. I had no right. I had come as an outsider, hoping to help, arrogant in my belief that my bending or way could do something to alleviate their suffering. 

“And what I saw…was that Fire Bending was no different than Blood Bending. For all their lofty words, Fire Bending had ruined a Nation, stripped the people of their homes, their lives, and their beliefs. And the masters at my monastery – or those like them – had allowed it to go on.

“It was perverse, the way that I had allowed myself to believe that good could come of my abilities. I had convinced myself that it was just Blood-Bending that was wrong and wicked, and had held onto hope that if I just learned something new, that legacy of evil would be forgiven. But to do so, I had picked the one style that had wrecked the most havoc on the world.”

Liu snorted. “Right. And Earth Bending was any better?”

Noa had the grace to look embarrassed. “No. But it took me another two years before I found that out.”

“Hmpf. Fine. Tell me about it over dinner.”

\------------------------------------------------------------- 

The town was larger than expected; larger by far than the tiny dock indicated on the map. But then again, cities could grow in a heartbeat, and if gossip was to be believed, they were going to attempt a revolutionary power plant just a bit up-river. Fire and Water, combined and controlled by benders, apparently promising enough power to electrify the whole delta.

Liu wasn’t so sure, but the added guards posted at the gates and the near-criminal fees they expected just to allow them to drive their cart into the city unmolested set him grinding his teeth. Right before them a contingent of Fire Benders had been allowed through without question, but the family after them was forced to pay a fine for “undeclared foodstuff”.

These people were farmers, selling their wears in the morning market, and they had been stopped for carrying food.

It was only a quick hand on his shoulder that stopped Liu from taking matters into his own hands.

He fumed for the rest of the afternoon, trying and failing to keep his voice pleasant as he looked for work. Sure, there were plenty of openings for Fire Benders, but a blacksmith? A mechanic? Who would need those?

With no work, they would have to move on.

But when they went to investigate the one working bridge, they found another problem.

“Papers?” Liu swore. “No one carries papers…”

“No papers, no passage.” The guard informed them with a blank look on his face. “ Can’t prove your identity, can’t cross over.”

Noa had to drag him away before he did something foolish. Again.

“They don’t have the right – “

“Yes. They do.” With a flick Noa gestured to the next convoy attempting to cross the bridge. It looked like a family, and it was clear that they were bribing their way out of the city and across the waters.

“Was it like this when you tried to cross the border?”

Noa paused. “Last time I crossed this river, we had to take ferries and this area hadn’t been annexed by the Republic. But look – this has only been recently instated.”

There was a queue before the local registry, all people requesting information about the new rules.

“What is going on?”

There was a shout, and a guard ran by, pelting after a boy who had dodged the queue. Noa shook his head. “They’re locking down the city. They must be afraid that the unrest in Republic City will boil over here, with the power-plant the perfect target.”

Liu was about to protest, but had to admit that they themselves had done similar things while in the Equalists.

“But restricting travel between the nations? They’ve never…”

“The signs say its only temporary, to prioritize the builders and workers.”

Liu snorted. “Temporary? Like the chi-bans and red lining? ‘Temporary’ like the curfew and detention centers?”

Noa nodded grimly. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? We just need to get out of here.”

With a sickening certainty, Liu looked up at the clock. It was tolling the hour: 6, the time the gates closed.

“Damn.”

\------------------------------------------------- 

The hostel was crowded by cheap, servicing workers who had been brought in as day labor for the plant. Liu had fumed over their watery dinner; all broth and no rice; made only worse by the loud company and jeering looks of the police who just ‘happened’ to be patrolling the area. Noa had stayed silent, a good thing given that Liu would have hit him had he brought up any more of his strange backstory. It was an entertaining enough tale for the road but the modern would was no place for fantasies in which spirits roamed the earth and benders were capable of something other than oppression.

He was still grumbling when the supervisor called for lights out. He just hoped Noa would stay normal for another night…

\------------------------------------------------- 

_There was a smell of sea and salt, the creaking of rigging and the groan of steel. But the strangest sound of all was that of the unhappy moan of the wind…if wind it was._

_Noa looked up. The spirit sobbed, welts left by a dark spirit wringing its form. It was huge, lonely, and broken, just like many things in the new cities. But this was hardly the first damaged spirit Noa had encountered and it likely wouldn’t be the last._

“Are you here to hurt me too?” _The spirit cried, huge hands resting on the dock on either side of Noa. Steam billowed from its broken smoke-stacks._ “Will you steal my friends and my family? What had they ever done to you?” _The last was said in a blast of pure sound that deafened any with spirit-sense for miles around._

_But apparently Noa was the only one who heard it._

“I am not the spirit who hurt you.” 

“Liar!” _The spirit flinched as Noa reached out._ “You. You’re like him. Consumed by darkness. Dead inside. Let me morn in peace!”  
 _  
It retreated again, as if it wasn’t the very thing that had called Noa from his slumber. As it left the darkness polluting it grew, eating away at it like rust, pain and sorrow flaking off in its wake. It wouldn’t be long until all that was left was the darkness._

\----------------------------------------- 

The next morning changed nothing.

The town had little work for them. It was large, a river town occupied with trade and the train rout, with its own mechanics and blacksmiths. It even had running electricity, powered by a team of fire-benders that far outnumbered the entire population of half the towns they had come through. And the rumors of the new power-plant had swelled the population even further, prompting all the local businesses to open their doors to the visitors.

Better shops meant that Liu could replenish his supplies and gather new ones. Their coin purse wouldn’t last long in the town, but the tiny forge and solid tools would feed them through the winter if they kept moving. And at least here they needn’t worry about being run out if they overstayed their welcome.

But civilization meant other dangers. It seemed every home had a radio, with a signal tower dominating the skyline of the village. Reports came from Republic City and Ba Sing Se, cracking on the airwaves and bringing news that most of the other villages had never heard. Here the fear of the Equalists sat side by side to the fear of the Water Nation Civil War. There had been merchants in the city when it had fallen to the Equalists, and others who were fleeing from the south. And even here there were murmurs of resentment both from those fearing the changes the new plant would bring…and those angry at any who would stand in the way of progress. Tensions were running high, and people were jumping at ghosts.

Only the fact that Amon and his Lieutenant were presumed dead saved them from needing to avoid the police and the town completely. There were no wanted posters with their faces on them, which was damned lucky because the Earth-bending police took after Lin Beifong’s force in the city. They were friendly enough to the town’s folk, but saw outsiders as a way to line their pockets, especially wanderers like Liu and Noa. The bribe to just bring their cart into the city was bad enough, the bribe to cross the bridge was worth more than a month’s worth of rent. 

But the food was good and the beds at the hostel were at least clean, though the cheapest in the city. And it was nice to catch up on all the news that Liu had missed since leaving Republic City.

Apparently Republic City refused to join the war, for example. And the Equalists hadn’t been heard from in over three months, ever since their de-facto leader had been killed in an ‘accident’. He snorted at that, earning some sour looks from other patrons at the bar. Apparently their attackers hadn’t believed the spirit world claim…or their bosses knew better than to let such a story out to the press. Still, a silent escape was better than a dead one and maybe the Equalists would rise again.

But for Liu the more pressing concern of work. While it would have been nice to spend the winter in the well-stocked town, the prices were simply too high for two men of modest means. Which meant paying the toll at the bridge and the bribe to keep the police from confiscating their supplies or searching the cart for revolutionary propaganda. As idiotic as it seemed, Liu had watched two poor travelers before them sent packing with half their supplies gone to the guards’ pockets. The next town was a week and a half down river, even closer to Republic City and better guarded. And they would have to pay another bribe just to get out of the city. It seemed they were trapped.

The injustice of it boiled in his veins but there was little they could do without revealing themselves to the guards. Chi-Blocking might be legal in Republic City, but out in the towns it was a sign of either revolutionaries or quack healers. And an electric weapon like his kali sticks would be even more unusual…if he could even find the supplies to build another.

So. They needed money to cross the bridge and an incentive for the guards to look the other way. Which meant a job, but with none of the mechanic’s hiring there was little work for Liu. Unless they found a way to earn an official pass, like the river-boat men, merchants or Fire-Bending workers, there was no way to legally cross the bridge.

He went over the situation again in his head, speaking aloud more to himself than Noa, as they woke in the morning. Luckily Noa wouldn’t arrest him for the curses he flung at the guards, but he did bounce a bit on the bed and suggest an early breakfast.

“You traveled the world. Were such outrageous tolls the norm?” He finally asked.

Noa shook his head. “I avoided large cities and mostly took ferries. I’ve never encountered a town that charged a month’s rent just to cross a bridge.” He glanced out the tiny window of their room, his face grim. “I suspect this is a hold out from the chaos in Republic City and the Water Nation.”

Liu lay back, staring at the cracked ceiling. “They wanted to limit refugee movement.”

“And track any potential Equalist sympathizers. Really, it should be a surprise that we haven’t run into this kind of toll before.”

Liu growled. The war had been over six months ago, and yet the governments were still using it as an excuse to repress and exploit their populations.

“I refuse to be trapped in this idiotic little town by a bunch of bureaucrats and corrupt cops! A town as big as this one will have smugglers, and they’ll only charge half as much for toll. We might be able to afford that…if I can find some work.”

The situation made his blood boil. No work, dwindling money, and dozens of cops looking to line their pockets. Could the situation get any more infuriating?

\----------------------------- 

The next time Noa blacked out, it was in the village square in front of a full crowd of people. Liu had been bargaining down the price of their weekly supplies and hadn’t even noticed when his friend collapsed until he heard a scream.

He turned, only to find a random villager shaking Noa and then recoiling in horror when his eyes opened to blank voids. She screamed and scrabbled backwards, hands flung back in horror.

“He’s possessed! One of the Dark Spirits is Here!”

A murmur ran through the crowd at the woman’s words. Already a dozen eyes were fixed on them, and now a dozen more thanks to the hysteria that tinged the lady’s cry. Liu tried to ignore it as he shook Noa back awake. He really couldn’t blame the towns people for being frightened; Noa looked creepy with the blank eyes and slack expression.

Slowly Noa’s eyes cleared. “…Liu?”

“You’ve gotten us into another damn mess, Noatak.” He hissed, glancing around at the growing crowd.

Noa massaged his temples, wincing. “It’s no worse than what’s coming.”

“Is it worse than being chased by a mob?” Liu hissed. “Because – “

But he was interrupted by the hysterical woman again. “Demon! See what the Spirits do to those who oppose them!”

Noa was still leaning heavily on Liu’s shoulder, and so neither listened as the woman rambled on, her words making little sense but seeming to stir the fires of agitation in the watchers.

“See! Without Unalaq’s leadership, the South will unbalance us all! Dark Spirits will attack this poisoned world and strip us bare! If only we had given them the respect they had deserved, none of this would have happened! But now…look what fate will befall us!”

She gestured wildly towards Noa, who was glancing in the direction of the river with a perplexed look on his face and paying little attention to the woman’s fear-mongering. 

He glanced up when she reached out, intent upon dragging him into the center of the fray.

“Look at him! Is this what you wish to become? A mad – “

“What does that have to do with anything?” Liu snapped as he helped Noa to his feet. Anything to get the woman away from his friend.

“The Leader of the North says that our abandonment of the Spirits has caused them to become angry, and attacking the South is only the first step.” The Water-woman said. “And look, you see what will become of us all should he fail!” 

She pointed at the still-reeling Noa and the crowd as one drew back. Fear and violence was in the air and Liu’s hands clenched in Noa’s shirt, ready to pull him into a run.

“The Spirits are angry because of disbelief? How idiotic. Spirits exist, whether or not humans believe in them. They were here before we came to this world, and they will be here after. If they are angered by anything, it is the destruction of their home and the unbalancing of the world, not something as simple as a few sticks of incense in an offering bowl.” Noa snapped, apparently blinded by his pain to the fear in the crowd. His voice had deepened in to the ring of Amon, the stress forcing him to instinctively fall back on the mask he had worn for ten years.

“That is not what Unalaq says!” The Northern woman said. “He told the world that only through prayer and fasting can this calamity be prevented.”

“Unalaqu is a fool who thinks one can bend spirits like one bends water – with strong will and power.” Noa snapped. “Which is all well and good, until one is forced to see them as though something other than the lenses of power and faith. Fear and panic will only give these “Dark Spirits” more power, if you really fear their wrath your time would be better spent meditating on the good your people have done and praising those spirits who will still listen to human words.

“Let the Avatar deal with this unbalancing. That was what she was created for. If there is any spirit that relies upon the belief invested in it, it is the Spirit of Light housed in that girl’s body. Place your faith in her or yourselves, not some man who thinks that power is the only thing a spirit understands.”

His speech done, Noa brushed the dust off his pants and turned to leave.

“Wait! What right have you to lecture us? How can you spew these lies? What proof do you have?” The woman snapped, the fire having gone out of the crowd at his words.

“What proof? After that – “ He gestured to his eyes. “I would have thought you would have asked something else. But if you truly want proof…” He rubbed his head. “I doubt you will have to wait long.”

\-------------------------------------------------- 

The spirit struck barely ten minutes later, howling like a fog-horn as it climbed out of the river. The sound was mournful and low, aching and lonely, the antithesis of the bright sky and clear air. Smoke swirled around it and everything it touched rotted or molded.

Again it howled, and Liu looked around to realize that Noa had begun running towards the sound. The man hadn’t even hesitated; one moment he was leaning on Liu, still trying to get his breath back, while the crowd murmured and shied away from them. Then he was gone, putting on a turn of speed that Liu hadn’t even realized his abused body was capable of. 

And he was running towards the danger, yelling at Liu to clear the area, his voice taking the huge, booming quality that demanded obedience.

Luckily, Liu was damned good at ignoring it so he simply followed, dodging fleeing pedestrians and frozen civilians alike. It wasn’t long before they reached the spirit. It had ravaged a residential area, overturning pushcarts and terrifying civilians but in all causing remarkably little damage.

When Liu arrived Noa was half-way to where the spirit stood towering over a small woman. 

“Suuuuuuuuujinnnnnnnnnnnnnn” The spirit bellowed.

The woman beneath its feet cowered. The spirit howled again and raised one monstrous hand.

Time slowed, and as Noa darted in front of the oncoming blow, Liu had a moment to actually look at the spirit before the scream tore out of him.

He had always assumed that spirits would look otherworldly, like ancient, powerful beings beyond human ken. As a child he had hoped for something more simple; a silly friend or impossible playmate.

The dark spirits described in the papers were more the former than the latter; strange glowing creatures that destroyed everything in their path. The blurry pictures only captured the pure power the creatures possessed, all that ancient mystery turned into something warped and monstrous. 

None of the descriptions held up to the real creature. It towered easily two stories, is flesh shrouded in fog and its voice a cacophony. Its body moved through the pavement like water and its arms were made of four whirling tentacles each. All that could be seen of its face was a vicious beak hidden under a mass of reeds. Glowing cracks raced across its form, blinding white light hidden by the fog.

It howled and struck down, and Noa looked up.

And then something happened. When the beast’s blow landed, Noa was there to catch it. But rather than throw him across the court yard, smashing every bone in his body…it passed through him, leaving light in its wake. It was as if…as if the darkness had been sucked away. And what was left behind was no longer a Dark Spirit.

Noa smiled and collapsed. 

\----------------------------------------------------- 

“Sujin.” The steamship spirit howled again. “Sujin, I am sorry.”

The woman started, her eyes going wide.

Before her the spirit transformed, the darkness stripped away, revealing it in its proper form.

Shaggy kelp hung down from its head, hanging far past its beak-bow. It supported itself on two huge propellers and steam billowed from the twin smoke-stacks coming from its back. Barnacles covered its hull. And though it was painted a dull grey, there was life in its eyes. 

It bowed before the woman, sinking into the ground at her feet.

“You gave your father and son to me, Sujin. And I…I could not protect them.” Tears streamed down its face and it buried its head in its propellers. “My Captain. My crew. They loved me, and they died. I am so, so sorry.”

Hesitantly, the woman reached out and touched the kelp covered head. Realization dawned.

“…Oh-Ree? But…you were lost at sea…”

Sadly, the spirit nodded.

“We were attacked by a dark spirit. Your father and son…they died.”

Sujin looked away, tears beginning to fall, but she had suspected as much months ago. 

“And I…I too.” The steamship lifted a propeller, showing the pulsing purple cracks that stretched across its hull. As it spoke, the cracks widened, consuming more of the spirit. “But I…I had to…”

Sobbing, the woman opened her arms and wrapped them around the shrinking spirit. “Oh-Ree, no…”

It smiled weakly. “So…sorry. But I…brought…them…back…”

And with a creak it broke into pieces, dissolving in her hands. For a moment the world glowed white…and then it was gone, leaving behind two shrouded bodies. 

\--------------------------------------------

Liu was trapped in stunned silence. There was a rational world out there somewhere, but apparently it no longer intersected with the one he was currently inhabiting.

Noa was rambling on beside him, as they hid out in an ally-way half was across the town.

“It was a converted Paddle-duck. Must have been a deep-sea fisher, trading from the South to the United Ports…The boat must have been in her family for years, and they loved it so much it came to life to bring them home…”

He was interrupted when Liu slammed him against the wall.

“How. The _Hell_. Did you do that?!” 

\------------------------------------------- 

Noa looked confused. “I told you. I wandered the Earth Kingdom as a novice monk…”

“Bullshit. I’ve seen what the Air Acolytes can do, and none of them has ever jumped in front of a raging spirit.”

“Maybe that’s because they’ve never met one.” Noa responded. 

He was going to say more, but there was a shout behind them and they were off again, ducking into alleys and the back rooms of shops, avoiding the police out of habit rather than any real shame in what they did.

Six minutes later found them nonchalantly strolling in the back of the hostel. Another minute had Liu stretched out on the mat with Noa leaned against a nearby wall, apparently engrossed in a book. They had both changed their cloths and hair styles so when the police rushed through looking for crazed Spirit-Benders they merely saw two off-duty workers. 

Luckily, the police had more pressing matters at hand than to search through their supplies, else the cover would have been blown.

Hands shoved behind his head, staring resolutely at the ceiling, Liu spoke through clenched teeth.

“Start again. What is going on?”

“I…I’m not sure. Someone – probably that fool Unalaq – is corrupting spirits and bringing them into this world.” Noa leaned back. “It shouldn’t be possible. But if the Avatar has opened one of the portals between this world and the next then things will only become worse.”

“You’re saying there will be more of those things?”

Noa nodded. “Unless the Avatar closes the portal and deals with Unalaq, which is unlikely if her spiritual side is still as shoddy as it was in Republic City.”

Liu was silent for longer this time. Then – “What is it that you do, exactly? And I don’t want all that bullshit you spouted in Republic City about cleansing the masses. Your powers aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen a bender do, nor anything like I’ve ever heard a spiritual leader claim.”

Noa mirrored Liu’s silence for a moment, somehow sensing that the man wasn’t in the mood for a story.

“I…I’m a blood bender. In the end, that’s the only thing that matters. No matter what other skills I have, the taint of that skill will never leave me. You must understand that.”

Liu nodded. He had suspected as much. All benders were the same…but something as monstrous as Blood Bending must leave a mark on the soul.

“As for everything else; you know that I learned Fire Bending. In my travels I learned Earth and Air Bending as well and then, after those showed themselves to be just as flawed and poisoned as water bending was, I turned my back on bending completely and learned to control Chi.”

“And what was that out there, then?” Liu gestured to the streets. “That wasn’t bending of any kind.”

“Not quite, no. But I am irrevocably poisoned by blood bending. That gives me an…affinity for creatures of darkness. And, if pushed, I can draw that poison into myself.”

Liu digested Amon’s words carefully. There was something about the careful way the man was speaking that indicated he was still skirting around something, though whether it was another ability or something to do with his knowledge of the Spirits, Liu couldn’t tell. 

“And when did you learn how to do that?”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The first time had been an accident. He had let emotion and good sense get in the way of his duty.

As the youngest apprentice of the team of traveling priest, his job had been to carry bags, take care of supplies and do the simplest protections. Difficult purification rites were left to the eldest monks and all the apprentices watched their work carefully from the sidelines.

It was not a glamorous job. The Earth Kingdom paid the priests little and most of their time was spent slogging through swamps and graveyards, searching for wandering spirits to put to rest. But here, deep in the lands ravaged by the 100 Years War there were many, many unhappy spirits. Often months would go by without a single break, as the team moved from village to village pursuing the most basic haunts to the great war-demons that stalked desolate battlefields.

But Noa felt at home wandering after the monks, caring for them along with the other apprentices. Learning the Earth-bending style was almost a side note to the knowledge he gained about the spirits and spirit world they came from. The monks were hard, practical people worn down by years of exorcisms, but their work saved lives and sanitys and their instruction brought him far closer to the spirit world than Fire Bending ever did. 

Perhaps it was working in the field, seeing both what damage angry spirits could do as well as the positive impact well cared for spirits could bring. Part of it might be the relief of learning something that was so opposed to the Fire Bending that had caused the damage in the first place; the solid practicality of Earth Bending called to him out of the shattered wreckage of his faith. They stopped by local mountain shrines and desert oases far fewer times than battlefields and wreckage, but part of their duty was to thank the good spirits and urge their local people to remember them. And those rare moments of peace and serenity almost made the months of hard labor and being treated like a pariah by the places they cleansed seem worth it. The monks and spirits that guarded them were his friends and he would defend them and their ideals.

So, when a rampaging spirit randomly appeared in a village with none of the older monks around to protect the people, it seemed natural to instruct the other novices to take care of the villagers while he did something very, very stupid.

Noa shouted once, and dove directly in front of the rampaging spirit. He got one look at the pretty young man he was defending, and then the world went dark. 

Looking down, he saw a giant claw protruding from his chest. The spirit howled and tugged at the claw and he felt something tear within him.   
__  
Oh. So this is what it feels like…  
  
But rather than see blood seeping from the wound he saw what looked like ink. Purple Ink, dribbling from the hole the claw left when the creature finally ripped away.

And it was odd, because he could still see his physical body. It was unharmed. But there remained a gaping hole left behind by the spirit, and now the ink turned to gritty sand that seemed to run like water back into the drain of his chest…he turned and saw the spirit looking horrified as the darkness was dissolved into sand and sucked away. All that was left behind was the ghost of a young woman who smiled in thanks before running to her former lover.

At which point he passed out.

\------------------------------------------------- 

“The other priests came running, of course, and put the girl to rest. The boy was inconsolable, but that wasn’t unusual, and one of the novices took over there. The rest tended to the villagers, happy that crisis had been averted.

“But the Master of our band…he wasn’t pleased. I had done something stupid, which could have put the lives of the entire village in danger.”

\----------------------------------------------------- 

Master Yao stared impassively down at the shivering Water Tribe boy. Not a single one of his other students would have ever been so foolish.

Then again, not a single Earth Tribe monk would have jumped in without head for consequence and safety. There was too much Fire and Air in the boy, that was sure. He might have talent for meditation and self-sacrifice but he would need a teacher more akin to his ideals if he was ever truly to Master spirituality. 

The thought made him grimace. If the Fire Benders couldn’t teach him, and he fled from his own tribe, where did that leave the boy?

Noa groaned and finally came back to consciousness. “Master?”

“Idiot.” The old man’s eyes flashed angrily. “You don’t even know what you did, do you?”

“I…I wanted to protect the boy. So I stepped in…”

“Do you know what happens when a Spirit possesses a human body?”

Numbly, Noa shook his head.

“Terrible things. The human dies, of course, and the spirit consumes their soul. But it also takes their power, and if the unfortunate soul had any Talents it can take them too. If it possessed you, what do you think would have happened to the town?”

Now Noa looked horrified. The master smiled grimly.

“Good. You know what you have done. I have discussed it with the spirits, and you are no longer welcome here.”

“But…”

“You think nothing of yourself. You are reckless and naive and willing to throw yourself into danger to save anyone but yourself.

“There is only one person I can think of who would approve of that kind of idiocy.

“I’m sending you to the Avatar.”

\------------------------------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always bothered me that Aang knew who Amon and Tarrlok's father was without any actual connection between the two. If Yakon developed blood-bending on his own, then why couldn't to random politicians? Then again, why wouldn't he tell Korra if he had met one of them...perhaps because he made a mistake that created one of them?


	4. Metal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man who would become Amon once sought out the Avatar, and fell into Dai Li hands. In another time, Liu and Noa must find a way to survive the growing corruption of the Earth Nation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for both the time it took to get this chapter out! More soon, I promise! And as always, thankyou for reading!

“You trained with **who**?!” Liu was off the bed in an instant, his earlier anger rekindled. Noa’s story was only getting more and more outrageous. “You never – Amon didn’t – “ He lapsed into silence, hands clenched in the former Amon’s shirt. 

“You’ve seen the way I fight.” Noa responded quietly, eyes sliding away from Liu’s. “Did it really never occur to you that I had to learn to fight air benders by, well, practicing on them?”

Liu gritted his teeth and withdrew his hands. Not because he had any desire to allow Noa free…but because of the look on the other man’s face. The way he half-closed his eyes, waiting for the blow he expected despite…despite the fact that Liu had never once acted on his anger, since that first night in the hideout.

But despite four months together, here they were again, Liu sitting on Noatak’s chest, looking for all the world like he was about to strangle the life out of his former friend.

“Oh. Good. You’ve already started.”

At the sound of the unfamiliar voice both men looked up.

The woman from the market place looked down at them from the doorway, disgust written on her face. Tall and thin, stripped of her Earth-Nation robes and looking far more like Northerner she clearly was she stalked into the hostel as if she had been called to deal with a particularly nasty infestation. She was carrying a sheaf of papers in her hands and looked completely different than the hysterical towns-wife they had met earlier. Now her eyes were narrow and her features sharp. A leader, not a victim.

Liu hurriedly swung himself off Noa and stood before him, falling easily back into the role of protector. Amon shifted behind him, but he dare not turn back, lest this interloper see the shock and anger that still boiled beneath and set his skin alight.

“I was coming to threaten you, but now I see that won’t work.” The woman said, crossing her arms. “I thought priests didn’t know how to fight.”

“We’re not priests.” Noa, standing now but just far enough back that he didn’t touch Liu.

“You are nuisances.” She responded. “Nuisances that have no business in my town.”

“I hardly see how – “ Liu began. Now stopped him with a hand placed on his arm.

But the woman was already speaking. “I believe your friend understands the situation.”

“You want us out.” Noa said simply. “But we cannot leave.”

“Not without these.” And there was the bribe, written out on the new white paper. Two bridge passes thumped onto the floor and the woman smiled like a lizard.

Neither man moved to pick up the paper.

The woman looked surprised. “What? My information said – “

“What, exactly, are we agreeing to?” Liu responded. This was hardly the first bribe he’d been offered, but back in Republic City the Equalists had a policy of publicly breaking the hands of any who impinged their honor in such a way. But now they were fugitives and hardly had that option.

The woman gritted her teeth. “You take those passes and get out of my city by tomorrow. And you don’t say a word of what you've done to a soul on the other side of that bridge, do you understand? I have this situation balanced and idealistic fools like you will only endanger the city more.”

Liu could feel as Noa tensed beside him. He, too, felt her words sting hard…though not in the way the woman intended. Idealism came easy to them. Fighting whatever authority this woman represented…that was easy as well. Turning their back to the corruption, to the unknown situation, taking what was offered and saying nothing – that was the challenge.

Finally, Liu forced himself to speak, pretending that the pause was to make the woman sweat and not because he was forcing himself to swallow bile. “…this isn't our city. We just want to get out of here. But if you intend to let things like that run loose…”

“No.” Something eased in the woman’s stance. “We will honor the spirits as they should be honored. And if it is fear that forces them to follow Unalaq’s ways…then so be it. They will be protected all the same.”

Liu hissed. How many times had he heard the same argument from the Triads? “Ruling from fear is – “

“We’ll take it.” Noa said. His voice wavered slightly, but he held steady when Liu whirled to glare at him.

“How dare – “

But Noa was already speaking, whispering fast. “Liu. We can’t stay here. I can’t stay here. Don’t you see what’s happening? People are beginning to panic and they will turn to anyone who knows something about spirits to lead them.”

“So you’ll trust someone like her to solve this?” He snapped back.

Liu’s words hit harder than any blow could…but not for the reason he anticipated.

Noa sat back on the cot with a thump. “Do you want a repeat of Republic City? A thousand people turning to us for hope, and all the power and corruption that comes with that?” He looked away, ignoring the woman’s perplexed expression and Liu’s fiery one. “You might be able to resist the temptation, but I will not risk it. If…”

Closing his eyes, he continued.

“If you wish to stay, so be it. I’ll find my way alone.”

“Noa…” Liu reached out a hand, but drew it back, still unwilling to offer the reassurance the other man so desperately needed.

“So will that be one pass or two?” The woman asked, breaking into their silence. “I don’t have all day, and I want you –“ she jabbed a finger at Noa “out of here by sundown. “

With a final glance at the former Amon, Liu stood and turned. “Very well. We’ll both take the passes. And a month’s rent as reassurance that your friends on the bridge won’t liberate our supplies.”

A scowl crossed the woman’s face but she complied, handing over a hundred fifty yuan note and leaving the passes in the dust. Then she turned and stalked away, mouthing one final reminder “out by sundown.” Noa collapsed backwards when she finally left, shaking slightly.

Liu followed her out, sneaking after her just long enough to know that she didn't immediately summon the police. She climbed into a well-kept automobile parked just outside the hostel door and snapped an order to take her back to the richest district in town. The last thing Liu heard from her was a complaint about charlatans and the difficulty of saving her city from the riffraff.

Content with this proof that she was corrupt but likely would keep her word, Liu returned to the dormitory, only to find Noa hurriedly packing, his hands shaking slightly, still not willing to meet Liu’s eyes.

How easy would it be to let him go on alone? Liu wondered. He wasn't a babysitter. Noa might be eternally tainted by his abilities, but Liu owed the world no debt, certainly nothing so damning that it demanded he shepherd his broken master through the world and ignore all corruption in favor of keeping the tainted man away from temptation.  

And why did he have to do it anyways? More corrupt officials and bending…all the chaos of the rumors of war…none of that mattered anymore. They were supposed to have left it all behind in Republic City. But now it was doggedly trailing them, as if the taint had followed the former Equalist leader all the way to this tiny city for the soul purpose of reminding them of what they missed.

It wasn't his responsibility. And neither was Noa. He was just another broken man, a burden and a monster….

“Amon.”

Noa’s hands stilled, but he didn’t turn. He didn’t even seem to breathe until Liu placed a hand over his.

“I told you, back in Republic City, that I wouldn’t leave you behind. That hasn’t changed, no matter what mess you’ve gotten us into.”

Noa’s shoulders sagged and he leaned against Liu, nodding. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you. I shouldn’t have said – “

“Just don’t do it again. You are mine, understand? You don’t owe shit to these people. You don’t need to charge in to save them. That’s the Avatar’s job, not ours.”

Slowly Noa nodded again. But beneath Liu’s fingers the other man’s hands trembled. That was all the warning Liu got before the man collapsed into his arms, exhaustion finally winning out after all.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Six hours later Liu shook Noa back awake. The younger man started and winced at the blinding sun. It cut right through him, leaving a pounding headache in its wake, but at least he hadn’t had any more dreams.

 

Sitting up, Noa found himself in the back of their cart, now being pulled by their goat-bison and a new beast, a creature that was half sheep half tiger. It growled at him once, then turned back being tormented by the chuckling goat-bison. The cart was fully packed with all the supplies they had stashed in the hotel, plus more that Liu must have purchased with the bribe. It strained under the weight of the supplies, Noa on the back, and Liu at the front directing the team into the long line to the bridge. The goat-bison pranced against its reins, eager to be out of the city and under the sky, while the tiger-sheep chewed at the bit and lashed its tail, ready also to be out of the dusty city and back into the forests.

Noa clambered back into the seat, still feeling faint from the earlier spirit encounter.

“You could have woken me earlier.”

“Didn’t seem much point. You wouldn’t have been able to help. Reporters, cops, citizens…they’ve all been looking for the man who can talk to spirits. No wonder you wore a mask back in the city.”

Noa at least had the decency to look sheepish. “I still could have – “

“What’s done is done. Now do me a favor and take a second look at the tiger. That shopkeeper barely put up a fight for it.”

Of course, most shopkeepers gave up quickly when Liu got that gleam of a sale in his eye, Noa thought ruefully to himself, but swung down to examine the beast anyway. It was a welcome distraction and allowed him to face away from the crowds around the bridge. More people seemed intent upon leaving the city after the attack, and most were being turned away at the bridge. It was a good thing that woman wanted them out.

“How much did you pay for her?” He asked, ducking as a brace of constables ran by, summoned by their brothers on the bridge.

“A hundred yuan. Beast like that would have sold for triple that in the city.” And they never would have been able to afford her otherwise, even with the ‘contribution’ from the politician.

Liu casually followed the officers with his eyes, then prodded the animals forward a few more steps. Ahead another family was being turned away. Someone honest must have been in the force; the peasants had kept all their belongings.

As Noa kept examining the beast Liu continued watching the crowd, trying to sense if it would turn chaotic. Certainly that was a danger; the people were scared and wanted to be anywhere but here, close to the river and the site of the last spirit attack.

“Well, it wasn’t that much of a deal. Poor thing must have been in the fighting rings; there are scars underneath the fur and she hasn’t been well fed.” Noa explained, repeating what Liu already knew, keeping a careful distance from the beast. She growled each time he got close enough to touch her. “Have you noticed the banners?”

Liu nodded. In all the side-streets shop-keepers were being bribed to hang up ornate flyers for a peace-ritual. Unalaq’s seal of approval was prominently displayed, as was the face of their earlier hostess. The spirit-beast took center stage in its most terrifying incarnation, no mention of how it was defeated beyond that of ‘ritual’ and ‘respect’.

“That woman’s got your style.” Liu commented as another banner was hoisted over the avenue.

Noa winced. “Well, as you found, it is easy to sway a frightened people.”

“Good thing you don’t scare me anymore, right?” As another official walked by Liu raised his voice slightly. “So, was I swindled?”

Noa pitched his voice higher as the man walked by. “Hardly. She’s a good beast. Once she’s fed, she’ll probably get her fighting muscles back. And she’s been trained by her last owner to be a hauler. I wouldn’t push her too much now, but with good care she might eventually fight for us.” The official moved on and both relaxed.

Liu smiled. “Good. We might need that, if this war spills over any more.”

He held out a hand to Noa, inviting him to join him on the bench. “No need to worry about tiring the animals now. Get up here.” His tone invited no argument.

When Noa complied Liu flicked the hood back up over Noa’s face. “It looks like it’s going to be quite a wait. Why don’t you tell me how you managed to convince the Avatar to take you in?”

\--------------------

The difficulty wasn’t in finding an Air-bending teacher. Everyone knew the Avatar had a compound in Ba Sing Se, to help train anyone interested in the Air Nation’s culture the way of Air Bending, just like there would be one set up in the growing Republic City. He himself only lived in Ba Sing Se when meeting with the Earth Queen, but with the ongoing controversy over the United Republic Lands…he was often there. It was said that teaching new air acolytes was one of his greatest pleasures, a short period of rest for a man besieged with politics and a world that had no memory of his culture. So the apprentice Noa packed his bags and set off to Ba Sing Se.

Getting to the Avatar was the problem; half a year’s journey on foot, traveling through the worst of the war-zones, and doing it alone. And each step he took closer to the Avatar, it seemed more spirits appeared. Not the ones he was familiar with as an Earth priest, either. Those were usually humans whose deaths were so traumatic that they remained on in spirit-form until a priest properly laid them to rest. Gathered together in the thousands into one towering corruption-beast, as had happened on the century-old battle-fields, and they could rival any spirit from the spirit-world and demand half a dozen priests to subdue, but usually they still had some shred of human conscious left.

The spirits Noa began to see on his journey to the Avatar were nothing like that. Human spirits he could placate using the skills his Earth teachers had taught him. Calm the spirit, release the anger and pain, and lay it to rest with the proper ceremony. Difficult, but possible for a lone priest. But now there were other spirits, ones that never crossed the divide between worlds. These ones he could only see in flashes; towering creatures that left storm-clouds in their wake; birds that sang and unleashed sandstorms; bog spirits that occupied swamps that were tiny in the human world but reached to infinity in the world of the Spirits. All these and more he became familiar with as he trudged through the coastal towns and jungles of the Earth Kingdom in what seemed like a never-ending journey, doubting his sanity the entire way.

\---------------------------------- 

“They were always spirits that had some connection this world. Whether it be a storm or a tree, a swamp or a river. But I never once saw a spirit that left good in its wake.

“It was as if I was cursed to only see the evil of the spirit world.”

\---------------------------------

He had stopped his meditation practice completely by the time he reached Ba Sing Se. It was too horrifying, slipping into the spirit world only to be accosted by whatever angry spirit was tied to the local area. Rot-spirits, corruption-spirits, the angry dead…it even seemed that there were spirits of light that took an instant dislike to him and attacked on principle. In three months, he only felt a single feeling of warmth from the spirit world, a chance glance of a fox that was not there, and then was gone for good. The rest of the time, it seemed the spirit world hated him. Only by quickly fading back into hard reality was he able to save himself from being possessed. Time and again he fled into the real world until it seemed as if preventing himself from entering the spirit world was a harder task than finding both food and water. He couldn’t even practice his forms without slipping between worlds and tempting all that was on the other side. Heavy irony, given the tongue-lashing the Spirit of the _Gei_ had given him three years before on his poor performance. Now he couldn’t seem to escape the spirit-world’s gaze.

It was with relief that he finally found himself at the gates of Ba Sing Se. Once he reached the city the spirits faded and for the first time in months he was able to sleep again.

\------------------------------

“But it was only a sanctuary for the week it took before I was arrested.”

Liu snorted and clicked his teeth at their animals. Despite the evidence he was beginning to see of the spirit world, he still couldn’t quite believe that his former commander saw it everywhere. But even he knew that Ba Sing Se was no place for Amon.

“I’m surprised you even made it through the gate.”

“That was mostly luck."

\--------------------------------------- 

He met another convoy of priests a week outside of Ba Sing Se. Their presence was what saved him from the spirits at first. He introduced himself to the Head Priest and was accepted in on a temporary basis. They had heard of his Earth Teacher and recognized his skills. But the priests had no interest in staying for long; their solid practicality and joking nature ceased immediately upon entering the city.

At the first inn, a half an hour walk from the edge of the city and just inside the second ring, Noa asked why.

“They don’t like priests here.” Was the only explanation the Head Priest was willing to give to the young man with the dark cloud following him, “We only come here if there is a specific problem with a spirit and then we leave just as quickly. You should do the same; get to the Air Compound as fast as you can and avoid the police.”

Noa nodded in thanks and took his leave, confused as to why the priests were looking fearfully at corners and jumping at shadows. For him, Ba Sing Se was coming as a relief; hardly any spirits seemed to be tied to the city, despite the century of war and the volumes mass of souls in one place. Perhaps it was because of the frequent shrines, tended by residents rather than priests, all with a picture of the Empress along with the local spirit. Perhaps so much humanity simply drove the spirits away. Or perhaps the change was within himself; the excitement and wonder he felt at the huge city, overwhelming and at once fascinating; a world with a million stories and more possibilities. Terrifying, in its way; completely alien from the places he’d traveled thus far. But for the first time in months he was able to relax enough to find a small amount of hope for the future.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that he waved goodbye to the monks and set out into the city. He had never been in a large city before; only visiting port towns and small villages. They, too, were booming, but nothing like this. The port he’d arrived to the Earth Kingdom from had claimed 5,000 people as residents, half seemingly children, and even that was too many. He preferred little villages where everyone knew his name and position. Where every sale wasn’t a bartering session, and where he wasn’t one of a million other citizens all trying to survive however they could. Though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, the little towns felt like home, even with their lush greens and ruddy-skinned people standing in contrast to the empty tundra and quiet Water Tribesmen. Perhaps, by finding the Air Temple, he would regain that feeling of community that he hadn’t experienced since leaving the Fire Temple. And maybe the Avatar and his wife could cure him of the miasma of spirits that seemed to follow him.

So he set his sights on the inner wall, pictured a sea of calm around him, and set off to find the Air Nation headquarters.

And promptly got lost.

\-------------

Liu laughed. “You mean…immediately? How hard could it be to go from one wall to another?”

Noa crossed his arms and glowered like a petulant child. The look seemed at home on his face, even without the mask, but it just looked silly on a 40-year-old man sitting in the baking sun under a half-cowl. It only made Liu chuckle more. He, for one, had always had a way with directions, and had loved city life. Coming to Republic City had been one of the best choices he’d ever made…before the riots and the Equalists and everything that happened after. Still, he didn’t regret the initial choice to leave his stifling little town behind and come to the big city.

Strange, how it all ended up. From the farm to the city; such an easy life in theory. But now he was an international terrorist, sitting next to one of the most evil men in the contemporary world. A man who was only now beginning to regain color and weight from the four months of hell he put himself through protect his friend. Whose voice still pitched up whenever an outsider approached, whose eyes roved and catalogued exists in every building they entered. And whose hair was finally growing out far enough to brush the tips of his ears, whose eyes still had the odd panda-lion spots from the mask-tan, whose smile still rarely went past wry amusement to genuine joy…despite the fact that Liu desperately wanted to hear that smile in his voice again.

The chuckle died on Liu’s lips. For all his earlier hesitance, there had really been no doubt in his mind that he would have dragged Amon along with him wherever they went. And now…after three months traveling together, could he imagine going on without Noa? Not Amon, that faceless master that he had learned to idealize then hate, but Noa, this man that was eternally more complex and shattered in his humanity. The answer sat heavy in his chest as the new man continued telling his fantastical story.

\-----------------------------

Yes, Noa got lost. The city of Ba Sing Se was a wild metropolis from the outer-most gate to the inner sanctum of the Empress. He tried to remember all the things he had learned in his first major town; to always keep an eye on his destination, to pay attention to his wallet and the people around him, to look for friendly faces to ask directions from and never hesitate to stop by government offices when one needed help.

None of that seemed to apply to Ba Sing Se. It should have been easy simply to follow the main road into the city center, but finding his way back to the road from the inn proved impossible. He was jostled by a running boy three steps out of the building, spun around, and promptly found himself completely lost. But there was a gate in the distance, presumably the one they entered through, so it seemed easy enough to make his way in that direction.

A good idea in theory, a terrible one in practice. But he was lucky that the monks had traveled all the way into the second ring, because the first would have eaten him alive. He found that out later, just as he found out how welcoming the Earth Kingdom truly was.

But that first week was magical. Though he was lost, he quickly found that the streets had some kind of incomprehensible order that all the citizens seemed to recognize. There were police posted at every street corner that took an interest in any wanderer and the whole city seemed filled with chatting citizens going about their daily affairs. As a clear outsider he wasn’t parley to most of the casual welcome the people reserved for friends and family but the Earth Nation folk seemed friendly enough as soon as he learned the word ‘tourist’.

Using that word got him from the Crested Badger district, where he had managed to wander the first day, his awe-struck gawking resulting in the wary looks coupled with rolled eyes and a pointed finger from any shop-keeper he stopped by to ask directions, to the main center of tourism, the Dragon Hawk district. There the inns were far too expensive for his meager wallet, but he was able to find a generous map-maker and a newspaper stand which informed him that the Avatar would not return to the city for another month, leaving him plenty of time to see the city and find work which every Ba Sing Se citizen assured him was necessary to continue living in the Second Ring.

“Even the Avatar has a job!” One vendor explained on the third day as he turned the pucker-squid on his grill. “If you want to stay, you’ll have to find work.”

Then, with a quick glance to the end of the street that seemed habitual to all residents, he drew Noa in close. “I know you’re some kind of monk, right? But no one needs monks in a city like this. The Queen protects us from things like that. You’ll need to find a different job.”

The man was of mixed Earth and Water ancestry, so Noa had taken to visiting his shop regularly and chatting between customers.

“I’m no stranger to hard work.” He assured the man, Park Duri. “I will do anything necessary to train with the Avatar.”

Duri leaned back, fanning the grill idly. “Well, you’re lucky you made it into the second ring. There’s plenty of work for servants here, as long as you keep yourself clean and don’t talk too much.”

Noa nodded and thanked Duri, missed the double meaning of his words, bought a squid-stick, and wandered off to find the Library again, thinking heavily. After a day spent traveling around the city, being jostled by crowds and wowed by sights he had never considered possible, the Library offered a perfect sanctuary. It was deathly quiet, the majority of the Earth Nation Citizens preoccupied with things other than History. But to Noa it was a treasure trove just as amazing as the sight of his first blimp or automobiles steaming down the streets. The monorails were fascinating, the melding of bending and regular life seamless and ever-present, but so too was the history of it written from hide to parchment, scrolls to books detailing how such ever-present systems had begun so humbly from basic mail service to evolve into the rails of today. He gave himself a week to fully enmesh himself in the city, and spent half of it just reading in the Library. He’d never seen so many books in one place, rare as they were in his little village and in all the places he had since visited. It was only self-discipline that stopped him from arriving at the huge, green-bronzed doors at dawn and staying there until the evening bells chimed.

He found every story he’d ever heard somewhere in that Library. Tales his mother read to him as a child, accounts from the Earth Bender Priests, operas from the Fire Nation and crumbling last messages from the Air Nomads. And though the veil of the worlds seemed weaker in the Library than any other place in the city, he found himself completely at home in its echoing halls.

It was through the Librarians that he finally realized what had bothered him so much about the city. It had been a subtle wrongness at first, so odd that he’d assumed what he was sensing was from the vanished spirits, not from the city. Yet his unease grew slowly, even as he told himself he was just looking for trouble where there was none.

On the sixth day, when he finally broke down and spent a whole day in the library, rather than traveling to festivals and exhibitions, he finally realized what it was.

The scholars seemed to glow whenever he hesitantly asked a question of them, spilling out information so joyfully, taking his hand on the first day and proudly showing off their collections.

And they met his eyes.

He hadn’t realized how important that was to him. As friendly as the vendors and inn-keepers where, no one would ever look at him directly. They always stole side-glances and spoke with their eyes focused on his mouth or forehead or an inch behind his head, never quite passing that last barrier in hospitality. The realization made him uncomfortable in ways he couldn’t quite explain, but perhaps had something to do with the fact that he himself rarely looked above his shoes in crowds and only three years of physical training had broken him of a habit his father had beaten into him. But now it was others who wouldn’t meet his eyes, others who had oddly false smiles and placed a mental barrier between themselves and the rest of the world. He told himself it wasn’t because they were afraid, like he had been, so careful around his father so that his other, larger deceptions would remain unnoticed. No, they must construct such barriers to save themselves from the overwhelming press of humanity. Surely, that was why.

In comparison, the Librarians seemed so desperate for company that their words spilled and tumbled over themselves, eyes shining and hands light on his arm as if he would disappear if they moved too quickly.  They were lonely, these old scholars of forgotten history, and desperate enough to welcome even an outsider into their midst. And while their advice was not so loud or boisterous as Park Duri’s it was none-the-less helpful as they helped him navigate the voluminous bureaucracy necessary to find a job and prepare for the rigorous tests necessary to become an air acolyte.

So it was with a certain sorrow that he wished them goodbye as he went searching for his first job offer, following the careful instructions the Librarian Geon had written on his map and hoping Duri’s information was good.

\----------------- 

Park Duri had been eager to tell him about the job, waving him down in the fray of tourists that passed through the Dragon Boulevard.

“Noa! I’ve just the thing for you!” He grinned, not meeting Noa’s eyes and finishing serving the two officers that had been lounging at his stand. “A woman I know just lost a servant. She’s got a family of six and needs a new houseboy.”

The man’s enthusiasm seemed a bit forced, but Noa took his word for it, following Duri’s direction s to one of the most affluent areas in the second ring. His travel-worn clothing seemed out-of-place, as did the dusty bag thrown over one shoulder. Here, people stared openly at him, eyes narrowed, the words ‘outsider’ on their lips, even as they hurried past him and on to their daily duties.

The lead servant made him wait fifteen minutes in the light rain, but seemed impressed in spite of himself at the fact that Noa had known to come to the backdoor (more good advice from Geon).

The lady of the house was a huge woman named Kim Mi. She was all smiles even as her manservant was frigid distain. Noa stood, trying not to drip too much on the intricate carpet, as she interrogated him about his reasons for coming to Ba Sing Se and his hypothetical duties.

“You said you wanted to attend classes at the Air Temple?” was her final question.

“Yes, Lady Kim.” Just like the servant, she seemed charmed by his use of the proper honorifics. “But I promise I promise that will not interfere with my duties to you. I will do my utmost to allow none of my training conflict with what you wish to teach your children. And though I am not a Native of your fair country I feel confident I will be a benefit to your household.”

Kim Mi looked at him for a long time, her eyes inscrutable. Finally she said. “You’re an intelligent man. And a kind one. You would have made a good servant. Pity.”

“My lady, What do you –“

But then the two men stepped from behind a door he hadn’t even seen, and Kim Mi’s expression went hard. They wore long, traditional robes and their hats hooded their eyes. It was as if history had walked from the page and decided to haunt the world of now.

“The Dai Li? But why – “

That was all he could say before the first man moved and clubbed him with exact, painful precision.

\---------------------- 

When he awoke, it was in a cell. He was earth-bent to a steel chair and his eyesight swam with murky red. Four lamps lit the room with a nausea inducing green. They were affixed to some kind of metal rail but he couldn’t see more. A headache pounded against his skull as he looked blearily at the two guards.

They were different men now, though in build and expression they seemed almost identical to the men who had captured him. One held a clipboard and a stylus, the other a billy-club.

The former spoke. “Your documentation says your name is Noatak. Is this correct?”

Noa nodded, confused to speak.

“Why did you go by the alias Noa?”

He blinked slowly, trying to make the room come into focus. “It’s just a nickname. Everyone – “

But then the second guard moved and slapped him, hard.

“No citizen of the Earth Kingdom may go by an assumed name.” The man said, before looking to the other.

The stylus-holding guard nodded and the man retreated.

“Now. Where are you from, Noatak?”

“The Northern Water-tribe.” The words, when he spoke them, sounded petulant, childish, like a boy grudgingly speaking to his father. The thought stung and Noa pushed it down hard. But the guard didn’t seem to mind; quite the opposite. He grinned, the first sign of emotion either man had displayed.

“Why did you come to the Earth Kingdom?”

“To learn Earth-bending.”

Another slap, and the writing guard informed him mildly, “Our sources say you wished to learn Air Bending.”

Noa felt his lip split, but didn’t let the pain show on his face. Deep within him he began to feel the anger he had learned to control in the Fire Nation begin to bubble again.

Carefully he said, “I came to Ba Sing Se to learn Air Bending after the priest Mu Won told me I was better suited to it.”

The second guard looked to the first, hand already raised to deliver another blow, but the other simply shook his head. Apparently that was enough.

So. Either they are giving me the freedom to hang myself…or they do not know everything about my story. Noa thought to himself. Lucky for him that he already knew how to play this game. Be helpful, give them everything they need, and only volunteer information that they think they want.

“So you came to Ba Sing Se to learn Air Bending?”

He nodded, mind jumping ahead, trying to anticipate the questions and figure out what they wanted from him. He had no doubt they wanted something specific – but what? There was nothing a wandering acolyte could provide that the Earth Queen couldn’t find in a better package.

“Why did you not go immediately to the Air Temple?”

The question startled him. He was mute in surprise long enough to earn another blow, but the pain was already beginning to recede. As long as he thought of it as another training session…

“I…I got lost.” He answered, looking down. “And then the papers said that the Avatar wasn’t in Ba Sing Se for another month…”

“And you didn’t think to find other Air Benders to train with?”

Noa blinked. “There…there are other Air Benders?” Then another blow, and the second man finally spoke.

“No questions.”

 --------------------------

Noa trailed off, watching as their cart finally rolled up to the guards. There was sweat on his cheeks and hands, but those could be blamed on the heat and the sun. Liu once again had to resist comforting him. It had been…strange, listening to the detached way he had described the beating. Clinical, almost. It made Liu shiver, despite the heat. Noa’s eyes had gone amber as he had spoken, un-focusing slightly as he remembered.

It was good that he had come out of the story when he did; it was barely a minute before the guards were rustling through their belongings and examining the paperwork. The officials seemed content to see the mayors seal on the passes but the guards seemed intent upon finding anything that could give them an in for a bribe.

They worked over the car and even the animals thoroughly, asking questions all the while; where they were from, where they were going, what plans they had for the Earth Kingdom. An odd kind of synchronism from Noa’s story, but with none of the terror and professionalism the Dai Li possessed. Liu answered the questions on with all the truth the louts deserved and didn’t care about the lies. He’d learned long ago how to lie to even the best police. And these idiots were just bruits with their official handlers carefully looking aside, pretending not to notice. He tightened his grip on the reigns, feigned politeness, and went over in slow detail how he would rebuild his kali sticks at the next town.

But when the guards reached the passengers themselves, all the tiny scraps of subtlety in them seemed to evaporate.

“And how about this one?” The final guard asked, roughly tugging Noa’s hood down. “Do you talk, trader?”

Noa nodded and tightened his hand on Liu’s, stopping the other man from moving. Spirits it was tempting, though. Liu was around ten seconds away from snapping and giving the guards what they deserved and only Noa’s desire to get out as soon as possible had stopped him from going full Equalist on their asses.

“You’ve been a quiet one, this entire time. Is it ‘cus you’re Water-Tribe? You sorry for what your kind have done?”

Noa ducked his head. “Yes, sir.”

The guard sneered. “You know they don’t want people like you in the Earth Kingdom. But we don’t want people like you either. Must be sad, sucking up to a man like that because he’s the only one that can stand you.”

“Chang!” One of the officials snapped, her hair tied up in Water Nation tails. “That’s enough.”

The sneer turned angry, and the man turned away, finally releasing Noa’s cowl.

“Better keep that up, water-boy. We sell people like you where I come from.”

He slapped the tiger-sheep’s rump, hard, and then motioned to let them on the bridge.

\-----------

“Bastard.” Liu hissed when they were far enough away that the guard could no longer hear. “Noa, you okay? He said – “

When Amon didn’t reply he turned, only to find Noa pale next to him, his teeth gritted and his hands clenching the seat.

“Noa. What’s wrong?” Had the man frightened his companion that much? But they had heard so much worse thrown at them during the Equalists. Though the words –

Noa shook Liu off half-heartedly, teeth still gritted.

“Liu. Could I  - could I take the reins for a bit? The tiger, I can’t – “

Liu’s eyes darted to their newest animal and widened. Across her flank, where the guard had touched her, was a long, thin gash. The cut was very, very deep. So deep that there was no way it could be bleeding so little.

“The sutures are in my pack.” Noa said, still frozen on the slowly rocking cart. “She won’t let me near her but you – “

The animal was already lashing its tail angrily, a low growl coming from her throat.

Liu had already swung down, finding the kit that all Equalists carried with practiced ease. Untying the tiger while only pausing the cart for a fraction of a second was less easy, but luckily the Earth Nation border patrol was only slightly quicker than their Republic of Nations counterparts and a long line of carts still stretched before and behind them. No one noticed his action.

Noa took the reins for the goat-bison, his face still white, using some kind of power to stop the tiger from lashing out. Liu pulled her to the side, reassuring her quietly as he tied her flesh back together and rubbed a salve on it.

“There, there, girl. Shh.” The panic bubbling in his chest seemed to unlock the long-ago memories of his farm, and his voice shifted, soothing, while his hands found the tense muscles beneath her coat and began rubbing the fear away. Little by little she relaxed, though the growl still rumbled in her chest.

“Noa, I think you should let her go. She won’t calm down until – “ He glanced back as he spoke, holding the tiger-sheep’s harness tight, only to see Noa white-faced and shaking, just as his control snapped and the beast turned, nearly dislocating Liu’s arm, tumbling him to the ground, in her attempt to get at Noa. Claws scrabbled on stone and before Liu could get in control again she was on Noa, claws going through his cloak in one blow and teeth snapping. With strength he didn’t know he had Liu tugged the beast away, bringing her to heel with words he only remembered hearing one time before, on a sunny afternoon spent with an elder brother out in the pastures.

The memory had been a pleasant one. This one was horrific, in part because of the terrified, angry beast, but also because of the way Noa had just…collapsed. Opened his eyes, looked straight at the furious beast and accepted it. And it made Liu so angry, after all their time together, after how much he’d gone through to get out of this city, Noa was just going to give up?

He didn’t know how he managed to compose himself before the guard arrived. He still was seething inside, even as the man whose fault it was sneered and asked if there was “any trouble with your animals?”

Liu tightened his hold on the tiger-sheep’s harness and forced a smile out. “Of course not, officer.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Really. I’ve heard that animals like that are quick to lash out – “

“I’ve worked with sheep all my life, sir, and I can assure you this one is under complete control.”

Anger worked over the man’s face and Liu stared him down levelly.

Finally, gritting his teeth, he spoke. “Good. Make sure it stays that way. We have the authority to…dispose of any animal that threatens the peace.” His eyes flickered to Noa, who was hunched over on the cart, holding the reins loosely with one hand, for all the world looking like he was bored rather than delirious with pain. “That includes you, tribesman. Make another problem and I’ll throw you both in the cell.”

And with that he stalked back off down the line, hassling any peasant who dared to look above his boots.

Noa began coughing, a racking huff that Liu slowly realized was an attempt at laughter.

“Noa?”

The former Equalist straightened up, his hands still shaking, but his laugh clearer. “S-sorry. It’s just – “ He laughed again. “You think they really only have one cell for that town?”

\-------------------------------------------------

By some miracle they crossed the rest of the bridge without trouble. Liu kept the tiger-sheep close to him, her reins tied to the side of the cart and her shoulder level with his hand. Their bison-goat didn’t seem to mind the mile trek on its own, likely because it was such a slow walk.

Noa pushed his hands away each time Liu tried to look at the wounds, but just as with the tiger, there seemed less blood than there should be. But by the end of the evening Amon was listing to one side, fighting to keep his eyes open, so much so that Liu didn’t care that the first inn they found after going through the second border patrol was twice the expense as their last place.

He tied the tiger and bison together, glad that both beasts had continued to behave themselves, and climbed the stairs to their tiny room, ready for a fight to treat Noa.

The fact that Noa handed him the bandages the instant he was through the door indicated just how badly he was hurt.

“They said they have a bath.” He said quietly, not meeting Liu’s eyes. “I thought we might – you might –“

Liu took the bandages without a second thought. “Of course. Let me help you down the stairs.”

“I don’t need – “

“I get to decide that.” And with that he put Noa’s hand on his arm. “Lean on me. We’ll get you fixed up.”

Grudgingly, Noa obliged. But he remained silent their entire walk through the bar and out back to the hot springs.

“Now you know how irritating it is.” Liu finally said, when they finally found a bath empty enough to not endanger their privacy.

“Hmm?” Noa looked up from the floor, confusion knotting his brow.

“Ten years, and every other mission you were badgering me to go get patched up.”

The former leader hmpfed but smiled slightly. “You were supposed to do the things that I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have done to have you always banged-up…”

“Right.” Liu chuckled as he helped Noa sit down, trying to ignore the way the other man winced. “Even when you let the others be cared for by the apprentice chi-healers, you always made me go to an experienced healer. Always seemed a bit like favoritism to me…”

“I treated all of the Equalists – “ Noa started, only to be silenced suddenly when Liu dropped him the rest of the way down.

“…but some people are more Equal than others, isn’t that right?”

The other man looked away. “I tried not to play favorites…” Liu snorted. “But without you there wouldn’t have been any Equalists. You never complained when money went to books or typewriters.” He continued speaking, even as Liu started to protest. “And you were more important than all of that. You were something real, something people could touch, while I never was. They believed in me, but they came to you when they needed help.”

Liu paused, halfway done with the ties on his shirt and pants. “Is that why you made me their councilman?”

“I didn’t do that!” Noa snapped, an angry flush rising to his cheeks.

Liu shook his head and turned away, pulling his shirt over his head, only to turn back when Noa continued.

“I gave you the tools. But you did the rest.”

“But the book – “

“I wrote that for you. Or someone like you. It was everything I hoped for our city, everything I dreamed of for it. But I could have never tied the city together the way you did. My power was – is – to incite anger and passion and hatred. There is no healing in there, no way for anything but destruction. But you…you were always there, picking up the pieces I was too foolish to notice.”

Liu was silent as he stepped out of his pants and kicked them to the side. When he turned Noa quickly looked away, and he felt a pang at the way the man always seemed to be frightened of his eyes, just as the people in his story had been.

He crouched and lifted the hood away from Noa’s face, feeling the other man’s clammy, sweat-slicked skin.

“I thought you didn’t notice me.”

Finally, finally Noa looked at him, an attempt at a fleeting glance of shock which somehow caught on Liu’s grey eyes. The moment stretched out and Liu saw as Noa’s eyes widened and swirled from grey to gold and back again.

He broke contact when the sorrow and shame threatened to overwhelm him, knowing his eyes were swimming with water. “Of course I noticed you. You were the reason I joined the Equalists in the first place.”

Liu breathed out and sat back with a thump and Noa turned away, wrestling with his shirt and trying to let his labored breathing give him away. When the shirt finally came off, tearing away from the gashes with a sickening rip Liu came back to life, pushing Noa’s hands away from his chest and looking at the damage, pushing the knowledge of Noa’s revelation away and letting his practiced practicality take over.

He swore when he saw the other man’s chest. His hands immediately went to a clean rag and doused it in the steaming water.

Noa bit back a hiss of pain as Liu dragged the scalding cloth down his chest, wiping away caked blood and the sweat of four days’ worth of travel. Liu himself wasn’t a much better sight, but at least he didn’t have four neat gashes down his chest, cutting over old scars and undamaged skin equally.

“You’re going to need stitches.”

Noa closed his eyes and nodded. “I’ve had worse.”

“Doesn’t mean this isn’t going to hurt.”

The needle got the same treatment as the cloth. They didn’t have anything to numb the pain, but Noa didn’t seem to mind, simply looking away while Liu threaded the needle and then proceeded to stitch his chest back together. Throughout the whole process Noa remained deathly silent, almost creepily so. Sprits knew they both had high pain tolerances, but the way Noa bit his lip and didn’t even whimper was unnerving.

“You don’t have to be quiet…”

“I don’t want to draw attention to us.”

Liu glanced around the bathing area. The rest of the male bathers had left a while ago, a whole caravan of teamsters that had overwhelmed anything that the two Equalists might have said with their loud woops and jokes. Now there was no one left except the quiet chatter from the other side of the divider.

He was about to scoff and say otherwise, but there was something in the way Noa’s eyes looked and the way he was focusing so hard lines formed around his mouth and between his brow that Liu said nothing and just finished the stitches as fast as possible.

When he was finished Noa let out a careful breath, then nodded with relief. “Thank you.”

“You’ve done as much for me a hundred times over.” A pause, and then, “If you’d taken care of yourself, back in the city after the revolution, you wouldn’t have gotten all those other scars. You told me cared for wounds don’t scar, remember?” That conversation had been years ago and shouted across half a cavern when Amon was finally exasperated at all of his gang following after Liu’s stiff-upper-lip habits.

Noa hesitated, hands on the ties to his pants. “I wasn’t wrong. But…well, there were more important things to care about then.”

Liu looked at Noa’s back as he finally stripped off the pants and carefully lowered himself into the water with a contented sigh. He remembered seeing Amon shirtless half a dozen times while in the Equalists. There were nearly a dozen new scars now, most burns or ice-punctures. But some of those new scars were like the slashes on his chest, ragged cuts from knives or wires that still looked red six months after they had left the city. And he still looked too skinny. The Amon he had known was a powerful man, the body beneath the uniform nothing but muscle. It had to be, given how often they relied upon the spectacle of the man’s physical prowess. He didn’t look emancipated anymore, though that was mostly due to Liu refusing to eat unless Noa ate as well. But the build of muscles was completely different. Even as Liu was bulking up from work at the forge, Amon was becoming leaner. More like a Water-bender in shape, and less like the heavy-set man who fought with power combined with speed. (That might change if Liu could get him to eat enough to build up the muscle mass again, but there was no real reason for it. They’d managed to avoid most fights until the guard and spirits.) Not to mention the shaggy hair that Noa kept having to sweep out of his eyes and now, wet, reached almost to the nape of his neck. And the rough tan lines around his face and shoulders only highlighted the difference more, as the masked Amon had the pale skin of a smog-filled city citizen while now his arms and face were darkening back to the natural tan of a Northerner.

No wonder the guard took one look at him and saw him as a water-tribesman.

The thought bit as Liu followed Noa into the bath. Amon looked like he did when he first joined the Equalists, the young man with the harrowed eyes who ate their words ravenously as if the Equalists had all the answers he so desperately needed. At the time, Liu couldn’t have imagined him as anything else other than another fellow bender brought low by the establishment. But now…he tried to picture the young man in Noa’s stories, traveling the world and becoming progressively more disillusioned with the bending world, even as he tried to find some good in his own abilities.

What had finally driven him over the edge? The Dai Li’s torture? Coming to terms with his father’s actions? Or was it finally accepting that his abilities were corruption incarnate and only able to cause harm?

Liu mused on it as he sunk lower into the water, resting his head against the edge of the bath and staring up at the stars. He knew, now, that Noa – and perhaps by extension Amon – hated his abilities. But he’d seen the cut on the tiger-sheep’s flank, and the gashes on Noa’s chest. Somehow, Noa had used his blood-bending to stop the bleeding and save them from being dragged back into the city as the guard wanted.

And then he’d accepted the attack from the tiger as if it was deserved, when he’d been trying so hard to save all of them. It boggled Liu’s mind. The Amon he’d known had been idealistic but pragmatic. That was why Liu had a roll at all; to do the jobs that were too dangerous to send the leader in, the ones where the possibility of failure was too high. They could never let their leader fail, after all. It would have been devastating to the cause and to the image that Amon had constructed.

Noa was nothing like that. He took blows as easily as Liu once had, and without any apparent desire for self-preservation.

Liu sighed and finally dunked under the water, scrubbing his hair in an attempt to stop thinking about his companion. Damn the man. He had taken up residence in his mind, and even when dead refused to leave.

“Let me see those sutures.” He asked when he resurfaced.

Noa obliged, turning to show how they had held in the water. His chest was barely bleeding at all now, and Liu was pleased with his handiwork.

“Take it easy for the next few days.”

Noa snorted. “I’ve done nothing these past few weeks that warrants ‘taking it easy’.”

“I’d say calming two rampaging beasts earns you a day’s rest. If I remember right you generally forced me on leave any time I got injured.”

“Well, that was different!” Noa ruffled his hair with his hands, sending drops of water flying.

“Right. We’re equal now, aren’t we?”

Noa paused, half way out of the bath, his face unreadable. “Yes. We are.” A longer pause, as he shook out his coat, the only thing that he had left that was fit to wear. “Which means I should be doing more, not less. You’ve been providing too much for me.”

Liu huffed and followed him out, snagging a towel and drying himself roughly. “You were in no shape…”

“We need more money. This whole situation would have never happened if we had enough to pay the toll.”

“The outrageous toll that cost a month’s rent, yes. But what are you going to do? I won’t have you helping at the forge, not with those wounds, and all your other skills are…well…”

He lapsed into silence. Amon had a life time of training, and while it was damn useful while on the road, it was either unnecessary or too dangerous to utilize in the city.

“Useless. I know.” Noa tugged the hood up to hide his face and gathered their remaining clothing.

“Amon, that’s not what I – “

“Don’t call me by that name. Please.” His voice broke on the last word. “I’m not that man anymore. All that he did, all the skills he had – they’re useless and corrupt and the man more so.”

“Noa.” The tone in Liu’s voice forced Noa to stop and turn, just enough to hear Liu’s words, but not enough to show his face. “You’re not useless. Spirits, you just saved a city today. Never mind that they ran us out for it. There must be something you could do with your skills that wouldn’t be a danger. I just – I just don’t know what.”

Noa stood, unmoving, then nodded once. “Fine. I’ll think of something. And I’ll try not to hurt anyone with it.”

Liu sighed and followed him, leaving behind a second trail of damp footprints, trying to pretend he didn’t hear the words Amon muttered beneath his breath.

“…it’s not as if my intentions have ever prevented catastrophe in the past…”


	5. Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As a Noa finishes learning all four elements and opens his mind to what the spirit world offers, he finally meets the Avatar.

The sister-city was no more hospitable than the one Liu and Noa had just traveled from. Prices were high and people frightened, the whispers of spirits easy fodder the fear-mongering sort. Both revolutionaries and government forces were out in the streets, crammed in between those fleeing the Republic of Nations and others trying to buy their way out of the Earth Kingdom. Everyone was jumpy, frightened of ghosts they had forgotten for the march of progress. But while the atmosphere was less chaotic; the strong hand of the Earth Queen reaching even here; there was still an ugly worry in the air.

Liu was happy to leave, not even trying to look for work. In the North the season was finally turning, and by the time they made it back to the border it would be safe to travel the wilds again. If they were lucky the Avatar would solve whatever world-shaking problem that faced her and leave the rest of them in peace. But Liu wasn’t hopeful.

Noa was silent that morning, taking his food without question and packing the cart quickly. Apparently he still hadn’t come up with a decent solution to their money problem. He brooded on it, showing all the signs of falling into one of the long sulks that Liu remembered from Amon. Not that he would have ever called it a ‘sulk’ to his leaders face. But then, Noa was no longer his leader, and Amon had always taken himself too seriously.

Finally, Liu took pity on him, and tried to take his mind off the problem.

“What was it like, being prisoner of the Dai Li?”

\--------------------------------------------------

The Dai Li kept him for a month, methodically working him over, hell-bent on some goal that Noa could never understand. Every waking moment was a fight just to keep his sense of self. He called upon every skill he had learned in his three years as an apprentice and all the memories he had of his father’s abuse. And even then, he didn’t know if he had succeeded, or lost something irreplaceable.

The beatings were the easiest to deal with, in their way. Just as with his father, it was possible to anticipate when a blow was coming and to guess what answer was wanted. Those were carried out during the interrogation sessions with the full Dai Li guards and became almost routine. Be woken up at some arbitrary time of the night, dragged into the green room, and have questions barked at him. Over and over he questioned himself, wondering what they wanted, but their questions never became clearer.

Luckily, they had no interest in his past and he had no intention of giving them more ammunition. Let them think he was a non-bender from the North, who knew nothing of the wider world but the Earth Nation he traveled through while following the priests. Their assumptions were what protected his fragile psyche when it seemed they had torn every possible hint of information about the Avatar and his travels in Ba Sing Se out of him.

Over and over he explained that he knew nothing of the Avatar, had never met him, and only knew that he was a good man. The second guard, the one with the club, laughed at that and hit him again, and he learned to let the guard’s opinions guide his own from then on.

But those were the easy beatings. They were structured, ordered, guided by the same pragmatism that he had so admired among the monks. The others were performed by the non-Dai Li guards, the ones that were just bruits with no finesse. For them it seemed like boredom and nothing else that drove them to spill his food and slam his head against the floor. Apparently, they liked to see him grovel. They liked ‘broken men’, as they said over and over, laughing as he buried his head on the floor and forced himself through the Fire anger-banishing mantras to prevent him from taking the tea and killing everyone in the facility.

\---------------------------

“You…you didn’t fight back?” Liu was shocked. The image of Amon, fighting alongside him, screaming the names of fallen Equalists to spur the others on…where was that man in the boy who groveled without thought of shame or honor?

Noa shrugged. “It never occurred to me. The Dai Li are like that. After you’re free you think of a hundred ways you could have escaped. But trapped in that little room, with no sound except that of the guard’s boots on metal floors…I didn’t know where I was, or how long I had been there, or even if I was still in Ba Sing Se. I think I was the only prisoner they had at the time, for I never heard another heart beat in all the time I was there. The guards certainly acted like it given the way they constantly beat at the cell door and changed the lights so I could never sleep.”

“But Amon…”

“Would have never done that, yes. But at the time I was fighting for no one else but myself. If it stopped them beating me I honestly didn’t care what I looked like. And by the first week I was so exhausted I had to focus all my energy on not submitting to the leader’s mind-manipulation.”

\--------------------------------------------

They used the lanterns on him starting in the second week. The lead guard had finally judged him ‘susceptible’ enough to begin instruction in the proper Earth Nation habits. Of course, that was more of a base-line exercise than anything else, to prove that the system was working on the prisoner.

It was completely terrifying. By then Noa had become numb, focused single-mindedly on satisfying the guards and getting them not to antagonize him so much. So when he was strapped into the chair and his eyes forced open he couldn’t imagine what they were planning on doing to him. The lanterns were a bit of a relief at first, before his mind sluggishly awoke and screamed at him to recognize what they were doing. By then the hypnosis had already begun and he felt his will slipping away. The guard with the stylus smiled when he saw Noa begin to fight against the restraints, trying to pull away, trying to close his eyes, anything to get away from what he knew was coming.

What the man hadn’t anticipated was the way Noa’s mind whirled in time with his struggles. There was nothing, nothing in the books from the library that described how to escape the hypnosis. But wait – hadn’t there been accounts, following the war, of the attempts to break the hypnosis afterwards? Stories of people freeing themselves through dedication and the support of their families, how the constructed personality fractured and cracked if there was only enough pressure opposing the lies given by the Dai Li…

But he had none of that. No friends, no family, no one to break the hypnosis. But wasn’t there accounts of those who had reverted when pure terror had overwhelmed them? Earth benders who had every memory of their bending hidden, but then crashing mountains to save a supposedly forgotten loved one. Or non-benders who had fought in the final days of the war with mechanical smiles, perfect agents of the Dai Li, only to turn and walk away with no hesitation when it became too much. Terror must be the key.

That…that Noa could find. Even bound in a metal box in the midst of a void, he could find that terror that had plagued him every step towards Ba Sing Se. All those spirits, drawn by some kind of scent that he carried with him. Surely, if he opened his mind, he could find them again.

It had been almost three months since he last meditated. But once learned, it was a skill that came easy, one that was learned equally by the body and the mind. True, being strapped to a chair with one’s eyes forced open while a Dai Li agent recited blatant lies and told him how to be a good citizen was a bit distracting, but he had been trained by a very physical teacher who tended to attack students with kendo swords if they struggled in their concentration. If he pretended the swish of the lanterns was Sensei Tong harassing other students it became easier to bear. If he pretended the Dai Li agent was repeating mantras he could ignore them. And then it was just a step to picture himself half-buried in the dark shelters that the Earth Monks had preferred to meditate in, especially in the oppressive heat of the southern jungles.

Then the early hypnosis became only moderately more uncomfortable than all of his worst training experiences combined. And all he had to do was concentrate on opening himself up to the elements and letting what came come.

\--------------------------------------------------------

They woke him with freezing water after his first session. Everything he learned was jumbled in his head. He couldn’t remember what his name was, who he served, where he was from – nothing. All he remembered were the lights and the fear of something looming above him, huge and angry, bearing down until he couldn’t bear anymore.

“Noatak” He remembered his name half way through eating what porridge was left in the bowl after the guards had dumped it on the ground.

Noatak. He tried to remember the rest as he went through the day, waiting endlessly in his cell, eternal pounding on the walls, flickering lights and encroaching terror seeping from the floor. Noatak. He was a monk. He knew Earth-Bending. He wanted to learn Air Bending. Before that…Spirit, Fire, Water. Cold winter night, freezing rain, the feel of blood in another’s veins. All of that was part of him, and try though they might, the could not take that history from his bones. And they would never know it for – he saw with sudden clarity that pain and fatigue brought – the men that would tear a man apart without so much as a flicker of expression could not be allowed to get their hands on a blood-bender.

That thought alone was terror enough to get him through the next two sessions, each time retaining more of himself, rather than less. The third time he returned to the spirit world, catching sight of a tree the size of the universe, and the reaching horror kept within sent him stumbling back, falling right back into the human world and into the hands the Dai Li. Thereafter the memory of purple tendrils, poisoning everything the touched, reaching for him and him alone, was easy enough to shake him out of the trance.

For three weeks he juggled the knowledge, balancing his half-remembered history with the man they were molding him to be. Over and over he would repeat what he remembered of himself even while trying to remember as best he could every facet of the invented man lest they realize his silent resistance.

Noatak. That was the same name, and each time he heard them say it bile built in his mouth. The name his father called him, and now the men of the Dai Li. Poison upon poison and he swore he would never again use that name.

He was a non-bender (not true) from the North (true) who wished to learn air bending because of a fascination with the wind and spirits (not quite true, but Noa couldn’t remember anymore why he wanted to learn air-bending. Why had he come to Ba Sing Se, when this was the result?). He had never learned Earth-Bending (false). He had a father and three sisters (false). He had traveled the Earth Kingdom (true). He was twenty years old (true). He had idealized the Avatar since a child (true).

He would never disobey. (False)

As time went on his trips to the spirit world were less terrifying and more peaceful. He never again visited the tree with the reaching tendrils of darkness. But its tendrils still searched for him. He could not remain in one place long before he felt their pull and forced himself away.

Most spirits seemed to avoid him, the small ones skittering away in terror while the large ones barred their teeth at him and would only scream one word at him. “Ratava”.

He still didn’t know what that meant. But slowly he learned his way around the spirit world, finding it a sanctuary that he sorely needed. Some days he spent more time there than in the real world, letting his mind go and letting his body fall into a state that could not be disturbed by the guard’s harassment. It was easier to sleep in the spirit world, even though there was never any real freedom from the fear. Horror was what he needed, and horror was what the spirit world provided, with towering mountains and deep ravines, dark forests and creatures taking the shape of all his childhood fears, and the ever present dark tendrils, with only tiny, momentary glimpses of orange and the edge of his vision a feeling of comfort that was brought with it.

The fear and loneliness drove him in the spirit world just as it did in the human world, and it came as no surprise to him when, during the second to last week, with no end in sight, he first saw his reflection in a spirit-pool.

No wonder the spirits were terrified. He had been told that humans took their own form in the other-world. But he…he was a monster, a twisted creature with a gaping void in his chest and a face like shattered pottery, letting a sickly purple light show through the cracks. Those cracks ran the length of his body, the purple leaking through them. The Noa that stared out of the pool was not the hungry young man of the North, but something strange and different, a shattered creature that should have been whole, but instead looked as if it would disintegrate at any second, held together only by blotched darkness.

In that moment, he was tempted to let the Dai Li make whatever they wanted out of him. Surely nothing could be as…as broken as whatever his soul showed. But as he stumbled away from the tear-shaped pool he touched one of the lights on his arm, and felt himself go numb. A few more minutes of experimentation, and he found he could dull his senses just as easily, by touching a point on his forehead and one on his chest. Another tool to use against the Dai Li mind-control. He was not amused by the irony of having another escape provided just when he was willing to give up, but the numbing blocks he created in his mind protected him when he became too exhausted to enter the spirit world, only a few days later.

All in all, he spent four weeks under the Dai Li. Each day was a fight, a re-learning how to act appropriately subservient and how to anticipate whatever his master wanted.

At the end, they dragged him into a wide metal training room. The stylus guard watched while the other two positioned him on the mat.

“Perform the _Nihanchi_ Katas, please.”

Noa blinked, mind racing. “But I…” He looked at the guards to either side. “…I don’t know Earth Bending.”

A fleeting smile on the head agents face. Impossible to notice, unless you were desperately looking for any sign of the correct answer.

“And will you ever practice Earth Bending again?”

Noa thought back. To the faces of the monks as they performed cleansing ceremonies. At the time he had thought that was what Earth Bending had been.  Undoing the harm and cleaning the world. But now…he remembered the faces of the citizens in Ba Sing Se, the way they always looked to the guards. He knew that expression now, intimately. Always afraid of saying something wrong, knowing that men like the Dai Li were always watching.

He knew, now, that Park Duri and the Librarians had informed on him, but he couldn’t hate them for it. He, too, had spilled secrets about people he had met in the Earth Kingdom. No one could trust anyone in Ba Sing Se. The Dai Li made sure of that. For all the apparent joy their culture brought…it was based upon this. The cold, detached look in the Dai Li agent’s eyes, the fearful glances on every face, the way no one would every look at an outsider…

That was the heritage of the Earth Kingdom. And it was the perfect reflection of its Earth Bending. Solid, practical, what he had seen used to construct dams and towers, with the same single-minded nature was used to slowly break a man into pieces. All that strength, all that politeness…used to hide horrors, just the way the Dai Li had so carefully beat him in such a way that there were never any bruises showing, never any bloody noses or black eyes, just the hidden pain of broken ribs and deep tissue damage.

He had loved Earth Bending. He had loved what it could do. He had loved the way the Monks had used it to save people. But that was not the Earth Bending of the Dai Li. That was deviant, an unfortunate remnant of a way that was being crushed and replaced with something better. Something easier to control, something that only the powerful were worthy of.

He looked into the Dai Li agents eyes and promised.

“I will never Earth-bend again.”

\----------------------------------------------

A clapping rang out over the training room and the Dai Li agent turned to someone behind Noa. He knew better than to turn as well, instead bowing his head and waiting for further instruction.

“I’m impressed, as always, Shin.” That voice. Where had he heard it before? “Is this your newest recruit?”

A woman came into Noa’s field of vision. She was heavy set and dressed in an elegant gown in exact Earth-Nation colors. She smiled and tilted his head up to look at him.

It was the woman who had hired him. Kim Mi.

Her eyes widened slightly, somehow sensing that he recognized her. “Interesting. Where did you say you got this one from?”

“A traveling band of monks.” For the first time real emotion seeped into the Dai Li agent’s voice. “They will be dealt with shortly, I promise. The things they taught him – “ he snorted derisively. “Luckily he won’t remember any of that.”

“I wonder…” Kim Mi said, finally releasing Noa’s chin. “I do hope you left more of a mind in this one than the last. He’ll never be able to infiltrate the Air Compound without it.”

“Of course, Lady.”

“Very well. Tag him and send him to me.” And with that the woman turned and left the way she came, her earrings tinkling with each step she took.

‘Shin’s’ eyes had narrowed into a glare as she left, and Noa quickly lowered his gaze back to the floor.

“Follow me, Noatak. Lady Kim will outfit you tomorrow. Tonight, you will receive your mission.”

\-------------------------------

In less than a day everything, all the questions he’d had about the nature of his imprisonment and re-education, were answered. He had been brought in to be a spy for the Earth Nation. A homeless wanderer who would go unmissed – there were a million things they could have used him for. But instead they built upon his desire to learn and perverted it into the perfect servant to watch the Avatar.

He had no choice in the matter, of course. They had apparently failed with earlier espionage attempts, as the well-meaning Avatar invariably either befriended the spies or noticed their glassy looks and Earth-Nation heritage and put two and two together.

This time, they were taking no chances. Sewn within a ‘traditional Water-Nation necklace’ was a small transmitter. The pendant held the microphone…the rest contained a tiny explosive that would detonate if he ever took the necklace off. Somehow it was powered by magnets and a second spy who was to act as his handler, never further than half block away, exactly the length of the Air compound, constantly tuning the metal shards in the necklace to make the transmitter hum just so.

One final session in the chair, reinforcing his instructions, and he was sent off to Kim Mi for the final prep work.

They knocked him out for the transport with an exact blow to the temple and he knew no more.

\-----------------------------------------

“Spirits. How can you sit there and talk so calmly about this?” Liu demanded, tying their beasts up at their evening campsite. “You could have lobotomized yourself, and spent a month with some of the most twisted bastards out there – “

Noa looked away and slowly stepped down from the cart, hiding a wince as his stitches stretched. “I’m sure some of the other Equalists have stories just as horrendous. There’s a reason so many fled from the Earth Nation to come to the Republic. The Dai Li and the Queen…they consider everything and everyone in the Earth Nation resources to be used. It would be a good idea to keep moving while we’re here, lest the tax-collectors decide that we should be giving half our wages to the Queen.”

“Why don’t people do something about it? In Republic City…”

“You think that this new President wouldn’t do the same if he had the chance? The Triads temper the power of the government in a way that is impossible in the Earth Kingdom. Can you imagine what would happen if the Council had put up a business tax or actually cracked down on the drugs? The Triads would have taken up arms against the Council for threatening their income source, and the police would have never been able to fight them, not without citizen support. It’s the same reason our revolution nearly succeeded – with the Triads running scared and the citizens confused, the government could not act.

“But in the Earth Kingdom the government controls everything. They act as a gang and a jury in one, choosing everything from how much food is allowed into the city, to who is able to move around or who is confined to their homes…to what is taught in the schools. And the people accept it because the Dai Li have the right to take anyone whenever they wish…and that has been the case for generations. But people try to ignore the terror as much as possible, and most cannot even think of revolution.”

“Then why did we come here, again?”

“It takes us farther away from the Avatar and Republic City, right?”

Liu sighed and nodded, motioning for Noa to continue. He was right. Outside of Ba Sing Se wasn’t nearly as bad as inside the city, from everything he’d heard. And Republic City was only a danger. At least here in the plains they only had to protect themselves from bandits, and not from city officials

\--------------------------------------------

Noa awoke in Kim Mi’s house, lounged in a comfortable chair, looking for all the world as if he had just dozed off. His old cloths had been returned and his pack had been opened and strewn across the desk.

The woman and her manservant stood above him.

“Well, I must admit, Shin has done well this time. So tell me, what’s your name?”

Next to her, the manservant flicked the switch on a radio and made a gesture towards Noa’s throat. The radio crackled to life and relayed Noa’s answer back to them, echoed in stereo. The white hair man nodded once, then flicked it back off.

“Noatak, hmm? How long have you been in Ba Sing Se?” She must have seen the panic in his eyes, and she laughed. “Shin forgot to prep you, didn’t he? That such a man would rise to the head of the Dai Li…” She shook her head, and held up a pair of his pants. “You were in there for a month. So a month and a half or so here in Ba Sing Se. Oh, no, no, this won’t do. You have sisters, remember? Girls who would want their brother to go well equipped to the Earth Kingdom.”

Kim Mi discarded the pants and replaced them with something just as worn but instead in Water-Nation blue. It had faded silver edging that looked as if it had been hand-sewn. Patches adorned the pants in green and brown.

“Much better. Now. How many sisters do you have?”

“Three.” He answered immediately, watching as his shirts followed the pants, all replaced with things just as shoddy but somehow more ‘fitting’ for this new Noatak. “Aluki, she’s sixteen, and the eldest. Ila, she’s ten, and starting her bending training next month with her aunt. And Kayu is eight and a complete brat.”

Another laugh. It was uncomfortable being near to someone who was so loud with her emotions after three weeks with the Dai Li. “Good, good. But don’t add too much to your story, lest you get called on it. Simple, Noatak. Remember. Simple. Now. What do you think of your father?”

A second of hesitation as he scrambled to remember his character. “I love him. He’s perfect.”

Kim’s eyebrow went up and she searched his face. “Interesting. And your mother?”

“Dead.”

“Why are you in the Earth Nation?”

“To learn Air Bending.”

“Did you learn Water-Bending with your sister?” Another new question, one Shin had never asked.

“No, of course not. I’m not a bender.” Correct response, but again Kim paused, her fingers fluttering over his belongings.

“Have you ever met the Avatar?” She bent to examine a twist of rope and a clay bowl, all that he had kept from his time at the Fire Monastery.

“No.”

“Was the travel from the North Pole hard?” Her hands touched the two spools he had worn as a child.

“Yes. I nearly froze to death.”

“Oh? Shin didn’t tell me that.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Did you like your Earth Bending teacher?”

“I had no Earth Bending teacher.” She flipped through the book Monk Yon had given him.

“I see. Well, it seems as if Shin has done his usual job. So tell me, how did you escape the hypnosis?”

Noa started, immediately trying to cover his shock, but Kim Mi was already on him, pinning him to the chair with heavy hands and staring straight into his eyes.

“You do not know this, Mr. Noatak, but I am what is called a truth-seer. The Dai Li uses me to test how well their informants have acclimated to their system. And , of course, to outfit you for your mission.

“I can tell when you are lying, Mr. Noatak. And I can also tell when you are telling the truth, and when you say something that Shin and his agents wish you to say. Most of the time, my charges can barely remember their original name, much less their family and history. But you, Mr. Noatak, are different.

“So I will ask you again. How did you escape the hypnosis?”

Noa swallowed and debated on the likelihood of him surviving if he lied.

“I…I learned to meditate. I escaped to the spirit world, and used what I learned there to numb my mind.”

Kim Mi stood again. “Fascinating. And you learned how to do that from the monks you traveled with?”

He nodded, only to have her slam the desk with one heavily ringed hand. “Another lie, Mr. Noatak. Not a full lie, but one of omission, I wager. Who else taught you?”

Noa sat, mute, everything he had tried so hard to keep from the Dai Li struggling to the surface.

“WHO?” And in that moment Kim was just as terrifying as all the spirits he had fled from so long.

“The monks.” She glared and he finally admitted, through teeth that threatened to bite through his lip. “At the Fire Monastery I trained at.”

Kim leaned on the desk and whistled. “Well, well. Not the answer I was expecting, I must admit. Shin certainly chose the wrong man for this job.”

“Are you going to kill me now?”

The woman blinked, then laughed. “Kill you? Spirits no. Why, this is the best thing that could have happened! The Dai Li have too much power already in this city. Why give them more? No, you go do your job. Make Shin happy, and don’t forget that they will be able to hear you.” She winked broadly. “Oh, and Councilman Sokka, the inventor, is due to visit in two months’ time. I imagine he would be very interested in you.”

She snapped her fingers and suddenly her servant appeared again, effortlessly packing Noa’s things back into his bag and handing them over.

“You will leave this house and go directly to the Air Compound on Duck-Dog street. Your handler will begin tailing you once you exit. After that, everything you say, and everything said to you, will be recorded. Do your best, and do hurry to the temple, lest Shin get antsy.” She pulled him up from the couch, steadying him with a practiced hand as he stumbled, and showed him to the door. “Good luck, Mr. Noatak. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

And that was the last he saw of her.

\--------------------------------------------------

“She just…let you go?!” Liu burst out loud enough to disturb the travelers half a mile away.

Noa shrugged. “I was just another tool to her. A broken one she could use to discredit her opponent. It benefited her to let me go free with my mind intact, so she let me go. I have no doubt she could have given me back to the Dai Li if it suited her.”

“And…and that was it? That was the last you saw of her?”

Noa nodded. “She was executed five years later. I read about it in the papers; something about an attempted revolution. At the time I was trying to forget everything about Ba Sing Se, but that stuck out. She showed me as much kindness as anyone else I met there, bar the librarians, and at a far greater personal risk than I knew then. It was a pity; I would have been interested to see how a Truth Seer would have ruled a country.”

“You were already thinking about fixing the system, even back then?”

“No. That came later, after everything that followed my entrance into the Air Temple.”

\-------------------------------------------------

Noa had spoken the truth when he said he was no stranger to hard work. As a novice, no matter the discipline, one was responsible for the daily needs of the whole monetary, temple, or camp. The lower level the novice, the more physical labor and the less spiritual contemplation.

The compound of the Air Acolytes was no different. Just as with the Fire Temple, he began as another lost soul looking for work, and gained entrance not through the front door, but through the service entrance in the back. Most Acolytes came through the front doors with yuans in their pockets and indulgent parents financing their stay at the ‘temple’; said adults perhaps not realizing that only half of the students ever left and returned to Earth Nation society. For others, perhaps that was the goal, to disappear unwanted problems into a monastic life while being able to claim that they were ‘helping to save a culture’. One could see it even in the non-bender children who attended classes the open classes on the weekdays, their parents looking on, eager to infuse a little exotic air at their dinner parties.

But he was not one of those moneyed novices. Just as his handler had demanded, he entered through the back door, expressed more interest in work and a stable home than Air Nation culture, and promptly went about making himself indispensable. Which was so close to what he would have done without the Dai Li interference that he almost could forget the secret wrapped around his throat.

It wasn’t hard to be indispensable. For all that the head Acolytes were fanatically obsessed with Air Nation culture and the history and rituals, very few had ever been in a monastery before. Noa got the impression that Aang had requisitioned the space, placed the first Air Acolytes in it, and then largely forgotten about it. And why would he consider such benign issues of who should clean the toilets or wax the floors? He had left the Air Temple as a child and no matter how many pieces he recalled, when the time came to change those piecemeal rules to adapt to a new, urban, stationary environment things were forgotten. Supposedly the true temples were better run, but Ba Sing Se’s compound was young and had yet to fully find itself, just like most of its students.

“Why do none of the novices help to clean the floors?” He asked one evening, back slick with sweat as an older woman who had followed her daughter into service brushed at the leaves in the courtyard.

“Oh, they don’t know how to.” She said, “Most have servants to do that kind of work. And now they have their studies…”

Resolutely he took the broom from her hand. “No study is important enough to put a broom in the hands of an honored elder.”

The woman flushed and scolded him for teasing her.

“I mean it, Honored Mother. Let me speak to some of them. I cannot teach how to Air Bend, but I know how to clean a corridor.”

The next day he politely but firmly dragged half a dozen of his peers away from nodding at their scrolls and instructed them in the art of dish-washing and floor-scrubbing. He’d picked his group very carefully, a mix of low-land nobles and city people of varying classes. Some would have helped their mothers cook, others help their father oversee businesses and still others had no notion of hard work at all.

It was from the latter that the first sneering complaint came, almost the instant after he suggested that more novices help in the upkeep.

“We are Air Acolytes, not common servants. What possible utility could cleaning have compared to considering the wonder of the cosmos?”

Noa was able to prevent himself from rolling his eyes and remarking upon the fact that he had found the speaker drooling on ancient Air Bending scrolls. After all, he had expected something like this.

“One need not meditate upon the cosmos suspended half way up a pole. You can meditate through action as well. Haven’t you ever felt that peace when you go through kata? Or when you harvested grain from the fields or worked at assembly?”

Some of the other novices looked surprised and then nodded. But the nobles remained unconvinced so he continued.

“The air-scrolls I’ve read say that there is honor and dedication in even the simplest act. Did not the teacher Wu Dao find perfection in a spill of sand? And Bo Hao said that every act, no matter how small, can lead the mind to enlightenment. His example was sweeping a stone garden. Why cannot we endeavor to do the same and give the Avatar a home he can be proud of when he returns?”

More cautious nods. But another noble spoke.

“And you, I take it, can show us how to do this? A peasant like you, perhaps wishing to cully favor with the Avatar and make the rest of us look like fools?”

“I would rather be a fool than a man who expects a grandmother to clean after him. That hardly seems the action of an Air Nomad, no?”

The boy reddened in anger and turned, slamming the door to the study room behind him. But the other students seemed to agree.

“It’s good physical exercise, too.” He said as he handed out the towels and buckets. “Different than Kata, yes, but just as important.”

After that, slowly but surely, things changed around the compound. Fewer work was done by the grandmothers, and more things were noticed by the students. The one acolyte who did all the cooking, for example, suddenly got a whole set of novices of her own.

Flustered by her sudden bounty she complained to Noa, “I love it, I really do! My hands don’t ache so much and I sometimes have a chance to sit down. But they’re all so…enthusiastic! Asking for how to make dishes I’ve never heard of before and “authentic Air Bender cuisine”. I just don’t know what to do!”

Noa considered. There were no Air Bender cookbooks that he knew of. However…

“Grandmother Cho is always saying she used to cook for one of the big houses here in Ba Sing Se, right?”

Yon Mi groaned. “Oh yes. She always says that before she starts insulting my meal!”

“Well, why don’t you ask her to teach the novices how to make some of those dishes she misses? That will take them off your hands for a bit and give her something to do other than complain.”

Yon Mi blinked. The arguments between her and Grandmother Cho could rouse the whole compound. But Noa knew there was hope when she smiled and said, “I’ll think about it.” The next day, Grandmother Cho was complaining about sore hands and children who didn’t know their way around the kitchen, but she and Yon Mi were also planning a trip to the Library to look for recipes together.

They arrived back a day later with piles of books from the archives and a note for Noa. The Master Librarian Geon wrote to ask how he was doing, and requested he visit sometime with an ‘update’. The letter was worded so carefully that the other novices merely teased him about bribing an old man for help with his studies…while Noa felt certain that the old man had sensed that something dire had happened.

Though it was true he was not the quickest student at Air Bending. Too long with the Earth Masters had left him slow on his feet while the memories of the Dai Li and of the Spirit World made him tense and ruin his concentration during the meditations. It didn’t help that he intentionally avoided the most secretive aspects of the discipline, afraid that his handler might hear something that could betray the Air Acolytes. Too often talk among the little family would turn to Earth Kingdom politics or the esotera of the Air Nation philosophy and no matter how fascinated he was he would find something else that needed doing.

It was not the same with the forms and books. The Katas were beautiful, swirling forms that Noa could not help throwing himself into. Close, so close, to the liquid movements of water bending but without any of the fear and shame that art brought to him; a perfect combination of Fire and Water, light on ones feet, with all the speed of Fire but without the constant forward attacks; the power of Earth opposed completely but nonetheless a boon in its opposition, teaching him how to not move even as the other students learned the actions for the first time.

And the books…he had never expected a nomadic people to keep such careful record, and it was true that there was an aching absence of some of the most basic stories. But the Earth Scholars of a century and a half ago had done their best to record everything of the deceased people. Legends, tales of marvelous actions, and above all the philosophy of the Air Nation, all was written out in the books Librarian Geon had so graciously lent to them. And all now out of reach of the Dai Li listeners, as the other Acolytes wrote rather than spoke of the knowledge they gained from the text, desperate to write down anything they could remember of Avatar Aang’s words and stories and reinterpret them through the new lenses of the books.

So while it was hardly a perfect time and he lived in a kind of self-imposed exile from the rest of the nomads, it also was wonderful in its way. So much to learn, so much to do, and rather than pick up the pieces of a broken world, as he had done with the Earth Monks, he was finally building something. It was almost possible to forget he was here as a spy.

Two weeks later his handler roughly tugged him from the street as he helped another novice bring home the groceries.

“Nothing but cleaning for three weeks, Noatak. Give us better information.”

He felt a shiver as the man tugged at the metal of his collar. But he swallowed and remembered Kim Mi’s encouragement. “You wished me to appear to be just another novice, and that is what I have been doing. Should I make myself more of a nuisance?”

The man growled and released Noa’s arm. “Don’t bring attention to yourself. But clean in more sensitive areas and don’t waste more time on useless things.”

“The Avatar hasn’t even returned from the Republic. They don’t know when he will. There is little I can do before then…”

“Then do your best, Tribesman. Or else.”

And then the man faded back into the crowd and Noa had to hurry to catch up to the master, his mind racing. The Avatar was still in Republic City for another month, held up by his family and city politics. Who knew when he would be back? And who knew if he would be able to save Noa from the Dai Li when he returned? All Noa could do was stall until then. Stall…and find more ways to learn without a single sound.

\------------------------------------

In the end, he chose meditation as a focus. There were few other students interested in spending long hours doing nothing, listening to a droning instructor, but after a day on his feet, sweeping, cleaning, and clearing trash, simply sitting for three hours was a wonderful break. He’d learned that it was quite possible to sleep while meditating, just as one could make lists and recite songs. Though there was a certain amount of irony in his resolute attempts to refrain from entering the spirit world, while the rest of the students struggled to enter it.

“Do not worry if this is difficult.” The instructor promised. “Few non-benders have ever been able to martial the same spiritual commitment as the Air Nomads who, of course, were all deeply spiritual benders. Unfortunately non-benders minds are too caught up in practicality and unsuited to spiritual work.”

The teacher, who was one of the few benders of the acolytes and thus had one of the highest positions, stifled a groan when Noa raised his hand.

“But was it not non-benders who learned to access the Spiritual World far before bending was gifted to some?”

Shin Tao Jin withheld his grimace and took on a polite look of indulgence. “That is the legend, yes. And such acts brought calamity upon the world as spirits and humans mingled. Those who would eventually become benders were the only ones able to control the skill, and for that reason they were gifted the right to rule over others.”

“I have not read such an account in any of the Air Nation Texts, honored teacher.” Noa responded, eyes downcast, balancing easily in the lotus position that Shin Tao had long since given up as impossible.

“That is the standard story in the Earth Nation. But someone from the wastes of the water nation would not know such things.”

“But Master…” Noa paused and one of the other novices noticed a slight smile on his lips. “I thought we were here to study the Air, not the Earth. Surely all of us are equally handicapped in such an endeavor, not being of the Air Nation, correct? Or would Avatar Aang say differently?”

He looked up and smiled innocently, and Shin Tao only hated him more in that instant. “I would never presume to speak for Avatar Aang.” He responded, teeth gritted. “But I can say that you have distracted everyone from their mediation, which is the true purpose of this time. Now, unless you can describe the spiritual world around our temple, I believe it is time to get to work.”

Cowed, the students lowered their heads and Shi Tao tried his best to attain the calm their newest acolyte had so easily ruined.

\----------------------------------

Shin Tao had asked for a description, so Noa cautiously peaked into the Spirit World, using his frustration at the arrogant fool as his tether to the human world. As with every time he had entered the Spirit World in Ba Sing Se, it seemed like a barren desert. A flat, featureless plain, the earth beneath his feet spongy but black, as if something long ago had burned away any life the place had.

Noa always began his Spirit journeys from this plane, ever since leaving the Dai Li. Apparently, the whole of Ba Sing Se was covered in this scorched earth.

He had learned, while meditating in the interrogation rooms, that it was possible to transport oneself around the Spirit World if one knew the location to aim for. But the only places he knew were dark and frightening; the feted bogs, the terrifying world-tree, the forests which darkened and seemed to constrict around him. The featureless plain was preferable, if boring and slightly disconcerting. And of course, no one would believe him if he described the place, the desolate wasteland that had become poisoned by the work of the Dai Li and the Kingdom's oppression.

But he enjoyed the silence. Here he was relatively safe and could let his mind wander as much as he wished, without all the worries of the human world hounding him. And though he did keep an eye out for angry spirits, he never considered that a benevolent one might approach him. So it was with surprise that he came back to himself with a wet tongue raked against his cheek and a cheerful face pressed close to his.

Unsurprisingly, he screamed and tumbled back into the human world, starting all the other students and drawing an exasperated snort from the Shin Tao.

"What is it now, Water-boy?"

"There was - it was - " He struggled to compose himself. "A fox. It was right there."

The other students turned to look at the empty air.

"What kind of fox?"

"Was it a fox-bear?"

"Or a fox-otter?"

"No, it must have been a fox-wolf, like in the North!"

"It was just a fox." He said, helplessly. "An orange fox with..."

He was about to say 'with a book in its mouth' but then he saw Shin Tao fuming like a smoke-stack and silenced himself.

"Sorry, master. I thought I saw a glimpse of the Spirit-World. I must have been wrong."

Shin Tao snorted. "Trust a slow student like you to dream of something as mundane as a fox and think he's been to the spirit world. Back to meditation, class, and no disruptions this time!"

The fox was there again when he returned to the spirit-plain. It was a mangy beast, its fur splattered with the dark ooze that seemed to cling to anything that touched the plane for a period of time. It still held the book in its mouth and regarded him with quite a bit of amusement. He couldn't blame it; he must have looked a fool, a star-stuck void wearing patchy air-nation robes and screaming in fear from a single spirit.

Whatever the fox was, it wasn't intelligent, or at least could not speak. But when he sat back down to meditate, making no sudden movements, it loped over and curled up beside him, falling asleep in half a moment.

It was only after he was done with the day's meditation that he recognized the book; a copy of a Water-Tribe cookbook that no one had wanted from the Library, and that had gone missing from his room a few days ago. What in the world could a fox want with that?

\-------------------------------

"Foxes..." Liu looked askance at Noa and chewed on the edge of his mustache thoughtfully. "Those were what were carved on your bedroom shrine, weren't they? It fit you so well, I never considered what spirit might have them for its messengers."

Noa siped the bitter morning tea and nodded. "They were the first friendly spirits I met that didn't immediately try to get rid of me. It seemed fated that I would one day seek out their master. I just wish it had been in better circumstances..."

\--------------------

After the first sighting, Noa began to see the fox everywhere, both in the spirit world and out of it. The creature seemed boundlessly curious, following him around the Air compound, poking its nose into anything remotely interesting, and causing all kinds of mischief.

Noa quickly realized that the spirit was far more physically manifested than most he had read of, though not the equal of the once-human spirits he had exorcised as an Earth-Priest. The fox seemed most powerful in the presence of books or paper, causing the most mischief in the study rooms and calligraphy halls. But just as a real fox, it also had a tendency of turning over dustbins. The wastebaskets in the study rooms suddenly seemed to gain a life of their own, confusing all the students except Noa, who began desperately trying to find ways of distracting the beast from antagonizing the air acolytes.

If he was honest with himself, it was a welcome distraction from the pressure his handlers were placing on him, which was only increasing as rumors that the Avatar was returning to Ba Sing Se began circulating. But it was difficult to take the Dai Li men seriously as the fox spirit worried at the labels in their clothing, looking for all the world like an errant breeze but leaving them with slipping seams and tattered hems. The men blustered, he delayed, and acted as much like the cowed plant as he could while watching the fox get up to its pranks.    

And then The Avatar didn't arrive. Instead he sent his son, a tired young man named Tenzin. The only other Air Bender in the whole world.

Of course the other Acolytes adored him, mobbing the man with questions the instant he entered the compound. Without hesitation all the senior teachers relinquished their positions and duties to him, falling over themselves in excitement at a real, live Air Bender in their midst.

Noa tried to avoid him for all the same reasons the others surrounded him. There were a million questions he had about the minutia of Air Bender forms and spirituality. Surely Tenzin could tell him what the spirit world was like for an Air bender, and how to balance monastic life with political responsibilities, and what was the reasoning behind that difficult step in the fifth kata...

But as Noa watched from the background, silently serving the delegations that came to meet with Tenzin, he began to sense something else.

Tenzin was exhausted. From morning to night he trained students, some three times his age, listened to increasingly angry delegations from the Earth Queen, and answered an endless stream of penitents wishing for the Avatar's ear. And he did this all calmly, assuredly, answering again and again that he did not speak for his father, did not control the will of the spirits, and was not the leader of the Air Nation.

And when no one was watching, Noa saw him break. A boy barely older than Noa himself, acting the perfect calm Air Bender before everyone else...yet in the single minute between petitioners, he collapsed, hands balling into fists in his robes, anger or frustration or sorrow overwhelming his features, shoulders shaking, and his lips bit between his teeth, hard enough to leave bloody marks on his teeth, the stress allowed out only in perfectly measured instants where no one but the invisible servants could see.

In every other moment he was working. But in those single, unguarded moments, Noa saw a child pushed past the breaking point. And he watched how Tenzin forced all the emotions back in, enough to smile serenely at the next visitor, and try once again for forestall a war.

\-------------------------------

"You knew Tenzin?" Liu didn't believe it. "We fought him for ten years in Republic City, and he never once recognized you?"

Noa nodded. "I was very, very different then. Nothing like the man who could terrorize an entire city. I was just a servant, beneath his notice. After all, he was a bender, and a world leader, and I was nothing - less than nothing. I didn't give him any problems, so he need not spare any thought on me."

Liu bit back a growl, but it still crept into his voice. "You sound as if you pitied him."

"I did, then. Perhaps I still do. If he had been without bending his life would have been very different. His brother and his sister...they were able to choose the lives they lived. He never had that opportunity."

"And do you still pity him?"

Noa looked out over the rolling roads and fields of the Earth Kingdom. "No...nothing so condescending. I feel...sympathy." He looked at Liu, examining the other man's face, unsurprised at the anger and disgust he saw there. "We weren't so different, pushed into a life we didn't choose by a father who valued us more for our Bending than our existence. And in the end...we hurt people we loved because of it.

"But I, at least, had the choice to do otherwise. All of my actions...they were my own. I could have - I should have left Republic City and the Equalists. I should have revealed who I was. I should have told the truth. All of those things were choices I could have made differently.

"Tenzin's whole life was dictated by his father. Even after the man was dead, still Tenzin lived under the shadow of that title 'The Last Airbender'. The kindest thing I could have done for him was take that ability away from him. And I'm still not sure I was wrong to attempt it. If not for the man who ignored the plight of our - of your people in Republic City, then for the boy that I saw all those years ago."

\-------------------------------

"What is Republic City like?"

Tenzin looked up from his reports, into the blue-grey eyes of one of the servants. Or, well, maybe servants. He couldn't really tell here who was a servant and who was an air acolyte. This one certainly didn't seem interested in learning like the rest did. Presumably he was here only for the pay.

"Republic City is the capital of the United Federation of States. While it might not be as old s Ba Sing Se, I can assure you that it will bring valuable trade to the Earth Kingdom."

"That's not what asked." The man leaned on his broom and looked at Tenzin levelly. He realized with a start that the man was barely a few years older than him, despite the workers hands and unruly hair barely bound back in a Water-Tribe tail.

"That's what's important about it."

"So is that why you moved here? Because it was so boring there? My father said it was a violent, chaotic city that no one in their right mind would live in."

A smile flickered at the edge of the man's lips and Tenzin bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself from getting angry. What right did this man have to tease him? He was just a novice! And he was distracting him from his work...

"Republic City is the largest of the colony cities. It has many unique forms of entertainment and a growing mix of industries..."

"Did you have a girlfriend back there?"

Tenzin stopped short, every thought of the trade agreement driven from his mind.

"Or boyfriend. I'm told Republic City is very progressive."

A sheaf of papers tumbled off his desk and Tenzin turned away, hiding his expression. The Avatar - his father - said that once one fully embraced an emotion it could be set aside for more productive action. Why, then, did it hurt so much when he thought of his home? He was here to serve his duty! Nothing else was as important.

"I had a girlfriend. Her name was Lin. She was a police officer."

"Why did you come here, if that meant leaving her behind?"

Tenzin clenched his hand beneath the table, throttling the emotions down. "A representative of the Avatar needed to be here. She needed to remain there. have you never had to leave someone behind to do your job?"

The last sentence came out as a snap and there was a flash of guilt across Tenzin's face.

"I'm...I'm sorry." He amended, barely a moment later. "I must have had too much wine at dinner." Desperately he searched for a way to distract himself from remembering lin...and chanced upon the other man's necklace. "...You would understand, being married yourse-"

The man's expression shifted suddenly and he made a stopping gesture. When the confused Tenzin continued the question, he sped around the table faster than even one of the trained acolytes could do, and pressed his hands hard over Tenzin's mouth. His eyes were wide, terrified and he shook his head back and forth desperately.

"What - " Tenzin mumbled, only to have the man signal furiously at him to be silent.

He obeyed and the man let him go, looking apologetic. Then, offering a prayer to unseen spirits, he pulled a pen from Tenzin's desk and wrote carefully ... _"The Dai Li don't know its a wedding necklace. You are the first to notice. "_

_"I am a spy."_

And then, in words so hastily written as to tear the page...

_"Please help me. I don't want to do this."_  

\-----------------

Noatak fled out of the room, disappearing as fast as he appeared and leaving Tenzin in shock. The fox stopped nosing around in Tenzin's files and followed him out, snapping at the man's robe but seemingly restrained by Noa's broiling emotions.

The young man cursed himself for letting the secret slip. The Avatar might have been able to do something about his plight, but what could Tenzin do? He might be a gifted bender, but Kim Mi had insinuated that only a skilled inventor like Sokka could free him of the necklace. In his coded correspondences with the Librarians they had agreed, urging him to remain silent until the Avatar and his friends returned.

But now he had just added another burden upon Tenzin. A pointless burden that neither could do anything about, and could only endanger the whole compound should the secret get out.

The crackle of fire behind him made Noa turn, only to see Tenzin burning the note in the fire-grate. The young man glanced up and nodded once at him, and then turned back to his paperwork, looking for all the world as if nothing had changed.

And it seemed nothing had. Tenzin did not order any change in his duties, did not drive him out of the temple, and talked with him no more or less than he had previously. The only difference was that, occasionally, Noa would look up and see Tenzin watching him, a frown on his solemn face, and his eyes hooded in thought. But they did not speak again until the Avatar arrived.

\-----------

It seemed the whole city knew about the visit before the compound did. Even Noa's handlers had remained mum on the event, only badgering him about the same tired issues to which he gave the same tired answers. No, he did not know why the necklace was becoming more and more erratic. No, he did not know if the Avatar would return, or when, or who he would bring with him. There had been no indication that the man wished to expand his "Nation" more than the few souls who had already converted. And yet they still asked, and he still answered, telling just enough of the truth to satisfy any truth-seer that might have been in the service.

The fox still followed him around, far more affectionate since he had shown the spirit-beast the library dustbins. Now whenever he saw it it carried some kind of book, all tattered and torn, but held as carefully as a kit in the creature's mouth. None of the other students saw it, though some seemed to catch glimpses on occasion. He was not the only student who saw orange in their dreams or blamed their missteps on a frustrating poltergeist.  But Tenzin stubbornly couldn't see it, or at least didn't react even when the creature ran in front of his feet and sent him tumbling into the dirt, to the great amusement of Shin Tao, the only teacher who did not regard the young man with awe bordering on idolatry.

Noa threw himself into forms and work whenever he could, trying to distract himself from the thought of what would happen should the Dai Li realize he wasn't simply a mindless slave. The thing that had saved him so far was that the Dai Li had no idea how a monastery was run, and were satisfied with his offered minutia. They still followed him on the street, and he had begun avoiding going out as much as possible. The last encounter with his handler had turned violent, and it had taken all he had to simply stand and take the blows the man unleashed on him. Perhaps that technique worked on normal agents, cowing them into obedience, but Noa had received far worse blows from his father, and at least the Dai Li agent didn't pretend he should appreciate it.

But it was with relief that he returned from the Library one day to find the whole compound busy with activity and a huge crowd of reporters at the front door. Twenty new servants and dozen more acolytes buzzed around the building, changing the whole compound around them.

"No, no, that isn't right! The Avatar only allows orange curtains!" One of the new faces said. "How could green be associated with Air? What kind of acolytes are you? We'll have to change this whole room - "

"Its hard to get the dyes here..." Grandmother Cho murmured, eyes downcast as the new woman fluttered around the room, decrying this or that feature.

"Are you saying you do not want to be accurate to Air Nation culture?  The Avatar will be very disappointed with the way this place has been run!"

Noa watched in shock as another tapestry came down and someone began rolling the carpets off the floors "air nation fashion is sleek and hard, even in the coldest winters..." taking down the new electric lights that had been the most expensive purchase the compound had allowed itself in the past year "The Avatar comes from a different time. Do you wish him to feel ignored?!" and a dozen rooms emptied of their beds and desks to be refitted as the Avatar's personal rooms "this one should be in water colors,  did you not think that the Mother of the Air Child would want space for herself?

It was worse when the woman spied Tenzin, who was looking frazzled and in need of a chair, and immediately descended upon him. "Tenzin! This compound was your responsibility. How could you let it get this bad? How could you run a monastery like this? The lack of organization and attention to details is appalling! Your father will be terribly disappointed."

Noa watched Tenzin's eyes as the woman finished her barrage. There was a spark of shame and for an instant he looked as if he was going to cry, and Noa had to throttle back anger. Tenzin had been working himself to the bone for the compound, and now this? No one had even been in a well-run a monastery before Noa arrived at the temple. All of them were doing the best they could, and this woman acted as if the wrong colored curtains was a high offence.

And all of the monasteries Noa had visited and read about were led by elders, people who had enough life-experience to deal with all the problems a single monastery might create along with fully mastery of their bending. Tenzin was barely twenty, had gotten his tattoos only three years ago, and was dealing with a temple of thirty people and all the political ramifications of his father's actions as well, not to mention acting as an informal ambassador for Republic City .  

But Tenzin just smiled at the woman. Admittedly it looked forced, but she didn't seem to realize. "Thank you, Aayusha. As always, you are correct. My apologies for failing to serve the Air Nation well."

The woman did not even acknowledge the apology, only nodding her head once and turning back to terrorizing the other acolytes.

Tenzin repressed a sigh, then caught sight of Noa. His eyes lit up, and he smiled. It was one of the first true smiles Noa had seen on his face and it was tinged in equal parts relief and satisfaction. Tenzin held up a single finger to his lips and gestured Noa to follow him to the back of the compound.

There, a tall man in Water-Nation Blue was laying a set of tools on the table. He turned when Tenzin and Noa entered and grinned.

Unlike Tenzin, Councilman Sokka's smile came easily to his face. Laugh-lines stretched around the wide grin and lean muscles wrapped around his bare arms. He wore a well-used workman's apron over the ceremonial outfit he must have worn for the official greetings. He didn't seem to mind the fact that it was already flecked with oil and the dust of the impromptu workroom.

And he had come prepared with a sheet of paper that had written on it "Tenzin told me about your problem. Let me fix it!"

Noa looked at Tenzin, who nodded encouragingly and then left, shutting the heavy door behind him, which was not reassuring. But Sokka was next to him in an instant, slapping him hard on the back and still smiling.

The next note said. "Don't worry about it. I've done stuff like this before." And then he motioned for Noa to sit down on a chair close to the work-table but far enough away to give Sokka enough room to move around him. The man hummed as he worked, picking up what looked like a box with wires trailing out and a pair of what looked like tweezers.

He gestured for Noa to hold the battery, then attached the tweezers with a twist of wire. Then he went to work, fussing around Noa like a barber, turning his head this way and that, working with scissors and charged tweezers, clipping here and there and whistling all the while.

Noa wondered if it was intentional, the fact that he was humming a water-tribe lullaby, the same that mothers had sung to their children for generations on both poles. It was comforting, even as he worried every second that his head was about to be blown off. Oddly, Sokka's manner was also comforting, even as he hissed under his breath, or suddenly whistled loud in Noa's ear when he figured out a particularly tricky problem.

All in all, it took only about ten minutes before Sokka disengaged the necklace, now held aloft by two sets of tweezers, one going to each terminal of the battery. Noa followed Sokka to the table with the battery, walking cautiously even as Sokka strode with every indication of confidence. The man set the necklace on the table, wire-side up, and set about fiddling with it, focusing mostly on the back of the pendant and the tiny device there.

He finally grinned and motioned for Noa to step back and broke it with an expert twist of his fingers...and a small explosion.  

\-----------------------

Both of them emerged from the room, coughing and wheezing at the acrid smoke. Noa's hands shook, but Sokka was laughing. He wasn't prepared for the back slap, and it nearly sent him tumbling over.

"Well, that's dealt with. What's your name, son?"

"N-noa."

"n'Noa? Alright." He grinned again. It seemed the smile never quite left his face, only widening to indicate humor of shrinking to indicate understanding. "Well, you weren't nearly as much a danger as you thought. That necklace would only have killed you ,not anyone else.  And that transmitter was pathetic. External power source, metal fillings...I could do something better in half an hour, if I wanted to spy on anyone, which of course I don't. Pointless, really. But now that that thing's off, we need to deal with you. And by the time Aang gets done grilling you, I imagine you're going to wish you still had that wedding band on."

He spoke fast, a never ending stream of words that only slowly settled into Noa's still-shocked mind. It was comforting and enough of a distraction to leave him shocked all over again when Sokka deposited him before the Avatar's private chambers and rapped on the doors.

\----------------------------

The Avatar was everything Noa expected him to be. Strong, with a wry smile and a loving one reserved for his wife, calm and serene in his Air Nation robes, looking like he would be in control of every situation. It was without hesitation that Noa bent to his knees and thanked the man profusely, partially to hide the stars in his eyes. After all this time...the Avatar had helped him. He hadn't thought it possible.  
  
But when he raised his head at Avatar Aang's insistence, he saw the same exhaustion in his hero's eyes as was in his son’s. And beneath the welcoming eyes there was a grim look on his face.   
  
"Welcome, Noatak. I wish we could meet under better circumstances."  
  
"I'm sorry, Avatar." He bowed again. "I, too, wish things could be different. I only wished to study here, not spy."  
  
Aang sighed. "I know. But we cannot erase the past, and I must admit you have cause quite a bit of problems for us."  
  
"I - I promise I avoided any conversation that might have put the other students at risk." Noa said, earnestly. "And I tried to confine my studying to non-audible work. If the Earth Nation discovered any of your secrets, it was inspite of everything I could do to prevent it."  
  
"Yes, yes, we don't doubt that." Sokka said from his seat by his sister. "That's not really the problem."  
  
"Aang's always been open with Air Nation 'secrets'." Katara explained. "We would have let any agent into the compound freely. We want more people to know of Air Nation culture."   
  
"Then I didn't hurt anyone?" Noa asked, hope starting to grow on his face.  
  
"I didn't say that." The Avatar responded. "Unfortunately, Tenzin and Sokka acted without my leave when they removed that device from you."  
  
Sokka rolled his eyes. "Right. Leave a bomb around a kid's throat."  
  
Aang ignored him "The issue is not that you may have leaked secrets. It is that the Dai Li now knows that they have lost their spy. Which causes a rather difficult political problem for us, at a time we really cannot afford it."   
  
"What - what do you mean?" Noa asked, his heart sinking.  
  
"I mean that, as a Water-Tribesman, taken by the Earth Nation, and then used to spy on the Air, you pose a very large threat to the balance of all three nations. Should the Northern Water tribe discover that one of their citizens was taken by the Dai Li, all the trade agreements we've worked on for the last eight years could unravel. The Earth Nation will claim that they had every right to take you, as someone traveling within their borders...which will further strain resources within the Republic of Nations, as more colonists might leave the Earth Kingdom or lobby for their cities to join the collective, further inflaming the conflict there. And if the other novices find out that you were forced to betray them...there will be calls to close all the Earth Nation temples, which at the moment are our biggest sources of new members to the Air Nation."  
  
Noa sat down with a thump while the Avatar and his friends regarded him levelly.   
  
“So...I’ve made everything worse again." Could he do anything without hurting those he cared about?"And now I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”  
  
“Now that isn’t - “ Sokka began, but Aang held up a hand.  
  
“We are willing to help you, Noatak, but you must understand the situation you’ve put us in.

Noa swallowed and nodded, his hands bunching in the fabric of his acolyte robes. It didn't seem fair, to have come all this way just to heap more problems on the tired Avatar

"As I see it, there are several solutions. The easiest would be to return you to your family."  Aang began. Noa shook his head quickly, and the air-bender said no more of it. "Or you could go to one of the Temples. There has been a long tradition of sanctuary among the Air Nomads, and the other students speak highly of you. I am sure you would be welcome. Or - well, you have many options, but you cannot stay here."

"We're sorry that you will have to leave your friends behind." Katara added. "But leaving would be the best for everyone."

Noa bit his lip. "May I have some time to think about this?"

Aang nodded, and Noa stood, his knees weak, and hurried off, not even bowing before leaving the room and fleeing away.

The storage closet he ended up in was quite, forgotten by everyone who didn't clean the floors and drapes, and a personal sanctuary. He shoved aside the damned green carpets and sunk to his knees, eyes stinging. The Lotus position came easily, and the barren spirit world bloomed around him.

What had he hoped for? That the Avatar would see all he'd been through, all his doubts and frustrations, and be able to cure his anger and pain with a word? What right had he for that? Noa was no one, and the Avatar had the whole world to look after. The man was killing himself with overwork, and Noa had handily destroyed the balance that was all the man worked for.

Unasked for, a traitorous voice at the back of his head, fueled by equal parts shame and despair, whispered _That balance is what leaves the Ba Sing Se under the hands of the Dai Li._

He shook his head, driving the thought away, but it came again. _You have as much a right to ask for help as any other. After all you have done..._

_I've done as much as anyone else has!_ He screamed to himself, feeling the darkness within him seethe.

_You noticed the grandmothers and cooks. You made the other novices help. Did the Avatar do that? Did Tenzin? No, they have 'better' things to do, right?_

_'Tenzin has never acted like that!'_ Noa told himself, desperately reaching for the calm that he had come to meditation for. 'He is burning himself to the bone for this school!'

_And for what? So people like Shin Tao can bully more novices?_

_'No!'_

_And now they want you to leave, just so they can forget you in some nowhere town, rather than threatening the Balance by confronting the Earth Queen._

**'NO!** ' Something broke within him, and he felt a flare of spiritual power from within him. It flashed out, anger and frustration turning to white light that cut through the putrid black coils that had snuck up on him from deep within the rot of the spirit plain.

But before they left him to his own thoughts the hissing voice that was and was not his own taunted him one last time.

_Balance is just another way of saying stagnation, isn't it?_

But the Fox-spirit was bounding up to him, an old Library book in its mouth, a worried look on its face, and Noa gratefully held out a hand and tried to forget what the darkness inside of him was saying.

\-----------

"So who is this Noatak kid?" Sokka asked after the boy had fled, tears in his eyes and despair written in the set of his shoulders. He couldn't help but allow the distaste he felt out into his tone : the kid had gone through hell, and they had to tell him he was causing more problems now that he was free.

"We thought he was just a common Tribesman." Shin Tao said. "Showed up at the back door looking for work three months ago."

"He's rather distant, but I suppose that makes sense now." Tenzin added. "It certainly explains why he keeps to the books and meditation."

"Meditation?" Katara prompted. "I would have thought he would avoid anything so calm, lets it remind him of his time with the Dai Li."

"Well, he's terrible at it." Shin Tao said. His face made it clear that he didn't for a moment believe Noatak's sob story. "I've never seen a boy less spiritual."

"Really?" Aang looked up from his reports. "Why do you say that?"

"He startles easily in meditation. He doesn't listen to my instruction. And he's lied about entering the spirit world to the other students - he says its some kind of barren desert for miles!" Shin Tao huffed. "As if the whole of Ba Sing Se has lost its spiritual center. Its obvious it's he who is damaged, not the spirit world!"

"That's what he sees?" Aang said, thoughtfully. "Interesting."

Tenzin looked at his father, worried. Everything Shin Tao said gave such a bad picture of Noatak. "He's helped a lot around the temple, father. He might not have made friend among the other novices, but the elders like him. I think he's worked in a temple before - he works hard and restructured the chore schedule to make things more fair for everyone."

"Fair?" Shin Tao snapped. "I've had half our most prestigious novices complaining about being forced to wash floors! He's made no friends there I can tell you."

"And I assume he is the one who hung those atrocious drapes?" Aayusha asked. "The ones that go against everything in the Air Bender aesthetic?" Tenzin caught his father making a face behind his hand. At least he wasn't the only one who found Aayusha overbearing. "What ever he knows from books, he clearly is not in tune with the Air Nation Culture."

"...I chose those drapes." Tenzin muttered, feeling his face heat. "Noa - I mean Noatak helped me hang them. They're from Grandmother Chun's storage, and warmer than anything else we could find. He said - " Tenzin trailed off, feeling Shin Tao and Aayusha's stares on him. "...he said that it would make her feel welcome. And that every nation he'd been in respected it's elders."

"It sounds as if he's worked in more than one monastery." Sokka commented.

"The monks who sent him to the city moved constantly. He couldn't have learned novice responsibilities from them." Aang mentioned, looking at the accounts that they'd been able to find on the boy.

"And he's a rather strong bender." Katara added. "Has he demonstrated what type?" she asked the acolytes.

Tenzin and Aayusha shook their heads, but Shin Tao exploded. "A bender? That sneaky...he's never once shown any bending! He acted so high-and-mighty, implying that bending had no effect on understanding Air Bending, but he knew how to bend all along!"

"He must have a reason for repressing his bending." Katara insisted.

"Noa..." Sokka muttered. "You know, I think I remember something about a Water-Bender boy learning at the Fire Monastery a few years ago. Remember, Zuko sent us a message about it. Not just because a Water-Bender was seeking Fire help, but because it was a non-Fire Bender finding utility in the calming techniques, and it proved that teaching the forms across ethnicity could have benefits beyond new bending techniques."

"I remember something about that too." Katara added. "But if this Noatak is the same boy, then he's learned all four elements, but has a strong reason to hate his bending that he's keeping repressed."

"See, the boy is a danger!" Shin Tao said.

Aang sighed, the familiar taste of darkness touching his spirit. "You are probably more right than you know."

\--------------------

A few hours later, Katara knocked on the door to Noa's closet. Hearing nothing, she eased the door open and walked in, her blue robes swishing on the floor. The boy was seated in an easy lotus position, hands resting lightly on his thighs, eyes closed, faced creased in worry.

He looked rather like Tenzin, in spite of his dark Water-Nation colors and raggedy brown hair. And like her son, there were deep bags underneath his eyes and worry gnawing at the corner of his mouth.

Is this the world we are building for tomorrow? She asked herself, as she always did when looking at her children. But perhaps that was the burden of loving so many driven people. They either left or struggled on and you were given the pleasure of watching them waste away.

"Noa." She called, lightly, while sitting down herself.

"That isn't my name." The words came automatically, before even he even was out of the trance. The fact sent a shiver down Katara's spine. She had seen Dai Li agents before, even spies that had been sent into the Air Temple, but the effects always disturbed her.

"Its the name everyone uses. Your friends among the Earth Monks called you that."

He blinked, and the light came back into his eyes. He flushed, and ducked his head.

"S-sorry. I guess I don't have to pretend anymore, do I? The Dai Li said you were only ever supposed to have one name but..."

"But you have bad memories associated with 'Noatak'?"

He nodded, swallowing, and looking miserable enough that Katara went on to other questions.

"Is it true you've studied all four elements?"

"How did you - " He started, then flushed again. "Oh, Avatar, right. Yes, I've trained in all four elements now."

"Can you tell me about that?"

"I ran away from my family, and washed up at a Fire Nation monastery. But when I stalled in my training, the Spirit of the Monastery and the Abbot sent me to the Earth Nation. Then the Earth Monks said I was too chaotic, and they sent me on to here. I never intended to learn all that, it just sort of happened."

"Was it hard, moving from school to school?"

"I didn't have a choice." He said, bitterly. "They didn't want me anymore. I was too much trouble."

Katara hid a smile. She'd heard that tone plenty of times on Kya's voice. But just because it made him sound like a petulant child did not change the real pain beneath his words.

"Why did you keep pursuing it, then? With what you know, you could have moved anywhere and found a good home."

"Because I..." he trailed off.

"You never found what you were looking for?" She asked, perceptive as ever.

He nodded, but didn't seem certain as to what, exactly, he had been searching for. Katara knew that expression from her brother, the vague frustration with no outlet that could be only silenced by delving further into a problem, until inspiration struck or one realized that the question you were trying to answer was not the one that was hounding your thoughts. Kindly, she moved away again, asking another question.

"Shin Tao says your spiritual growth is much slower than your physical growth."

"Shin Tao Jin is an idiot." Noa said automatically, then quickly covered his mouth. But Katara just laughed.

"You're not the only one who thinks that. Aang says you have great potential to be a spiritual leader. Do you have a spirit guide?"

"There aren't many spirits in Ba Sing Se." Noa started. "But...there's a fox that hangs round the Temple and Library. He's quite friendly. But he likes to make trouble."

Katara's eyebrows shot up, but she continued her questions.

"May I ask how you escaped the Dai Li brainwashing?"

"I ran away to the spirit world. Then I found that I could numb my mind if I hit the right nerves."

Katara swore. "That was incredibly dangerous! You could have killed yourself! Even advanced Chi Blockers -"

"Chi Blocking? Is that what I was doing?"

Katara coughed and forced herself from shaking him the same way she did Tenzin and Bumi whenever they did something dangerous. "Yes, that was chi blocking. The advanced kind. We use some of the same techniques in healing."

"I wish I could have been a healer."

"Really? What's stopping you? If you learn to control your waterbending, you could surely learn..."

"That's..." Noa trailed off, then swallowed. Katara relaxed slightly, It was obvious that whatever demon had been pursuing him, he was finally going to release it. And about time, too. It had probably been worrying him long before the Dai Li had gotten their hands on him."...I think that's why I wanted to come here, really. All of the other bending styles...they helped me learn to control everything that hurt me. Fire, control. Earth, perseverance even in the face of failure. And Air, the ability to relax and accept. So maybe...maybe I'm finally strong enough to try Water again. And you--you're the best Water Bender there is. You're a healer, everything I ever wanted to be."

There was bright, vibrant hope in the eyes of the boy, bordering on desperation. Katara felt the sinking sensation, suddenly certain that whatever he said, his hope was misplaced"

"And you're a blood bender. You can teach me how to control it, right?"


End file.
